


Turn My Collar to the Cold

by Loracine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Curses, Emotional Constipation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 21:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8464450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loracine/pseuds/Loracine
Summary: Dean goes blind for no reason and, despite the fact that a simple cleansing fixes the problem, it keeps happening. Then he gets worse, losing more than just his sight. Sam finds that he must accept a truth he has been denying all of his life, the one that sent him running to Stanford all those years ago in an effort to save his brother from himself. This story is set in Season 8 shortly after Dean returns from Purgatory, but before the boys find the bunker and after they reconnect with Garth.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to two wonderful people... my beta, [gatorgurl94](http://gatorgurl94.livejournal.com/), and my artist, [kazue7294](http://kazue7294.livejournal.com/)!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean turned his head. "Dude, I know you're mad at me, but you could at least let me know my ride is ok," he snarked. The sarcastic grin on his face faded as he watched Sam's mouth move, but no sound reached his ears. "Uh, Sam, I can't hear you," he finally said.

 

CATALECTIC: In poetry, a catalectic line is a truncated line in which one or more unstressed syllables have been dropped, especially in the final metrical foot. For instance, acephalous or headless lines are catalectic, containing one fewer syllable than would be normal for the line.

 

The first time Sam heard about it he was thirteen and had dismissed it as the words of a charlatan. He'd finally scored a date with Tabitha. It was a Saturday night. Dad had been out on a job since last Tuesday and since they weren't expecting him back until after the full moon he could enjoy the illusion of normalcy for a while longer. He knew weekend boot camp would start up as soon as their old man was in range to notice, and it wasn't like they were ignoring their training entirely, but Dean was perfectly content to let his little brother have at least one day without school or brutal physical conditioning, John Winchester style. He also enjoyed watching his baby brother squirm.

Dean was fussing over his outfit, like the mama bear he denied he was.

"I'm not wearing that," Sam grumped.

Dean pointed to his best pair of jeans and the dress shirt he dug out of the back of the closet, probably left there by the last family to rent the house. "Well, you aren't going in that," he countered.

He scowled, "I want to look nice." No way was he wearing one of Dean's old band t-shirts and a denim jacket.

"Dude, you look like a Back Street reject," his brother complained. "You'll never get tail that way."

"I'm not taking her out to get into her pants, Dean. Unlike you, I actually want to get to know her," Sam replied. When Dean snickered he added, "Grow up, jerk."

"Bitch," Dean bit back, lacking any true heat. He even ruffled Sam's hair when he dropped him off at the mall, earning him another one of Sam's famous bitch-faces before he drove off.

At the mall, Sam had no idea what he was doing. Dean had slipped a fold of twenties into his pocket, against his protests, so he had money. He had only been to a mall once before, though, and that had been last year and about two cities back. He stood around awkwardly with her purse slung over his shoulder as she tried on mountains of clothes. Initially, he had hated that part, but he soon found she liked to model her choices for his opinion and didn't seem to mind his stuttering with each new revealing item of barely there or skin-tight fabric. A couple times he was positive his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. They had lunch at the food court, watched a movie about dolphins, and by the time she was ready to leave Sam even had a new wallet. It was the first really new thing he had ever had, aside from the odd pair of shoes Dean would miraculously materialize every time Sam's feet got too big. Dad didn't seem to notice how fast either of them had grown over the years and Dean had figured out how to pick up the slack somehow.

"Sam. Sam. We have got to try this," Tabitha was saying, pulling on his arm.

He looked over at her. "What," he asked.

She pointed to the storefront with a neon pink sign for what looked to be your standard bottom-feeder psychic. It looked sketchy, chintzy. In other words, harmless if you didn't mind losing your money for badly constructed and purposefully vague lies. He didn't know which would be worse, actually paying for this shit or finding out he'd stumbled into a real psychic. The real ones could be bad news. "Come on. This is going to be fun," she said and led the way.

Not wanting to make a bad impression by ditching her on their first date, Sam followed, glad he'd thought to bring along his butterfly knife, the one with the silver etched blade. He was amused by the plethora of hackneyed psychic crap inside. Everything you'd expect to find had been stuffed onto shelves and was overflowing every visible flat surface; crystals, herbs, worn-looking tarot decks. Sam relaxed. This one was a charlatan, had to be. Those possessed of genuine ability, or even demon gifted knowledge, didn't bother with these theatrics. Besides, Sam remembered that either Dad or Dean had to have cleared this town before they'd arrived and he also knew Dean was keeping his ear to the ground for anything unusual, overprotective and paranoid big brother that he was.

Tabitha received the usual crystal ball and tarot card shtick, but when it came time for Sam the man hesitated. "You are unique," he said.

Sam sat down in the chair and frowned. "Just hurry up, please," he said.

The man's hands settled on the crystal ball between them and Sam had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. The big thing was useless, little more than an expensive paperweight. That's when things got weird. A wind ruffled past Sam, standing the small hairs of his skin on end. His hair tickled his ears, his clothing twitched, and nothing else in the room moved. Not even the cheap beaded curtain or the cloth on the little round table in front of him. Freaky. The psychic, unruffled, started speaking in this odd static voice, " _by Love, cleaved in twain, bound and chained, one steeped in the blood, one claimed from above. heedless of the other’s pain, stubborn pride will sever ties, sacrifice and cast aside, the two must see through stolen lies_ " The man seemed to surface from his trance once he was done speaking and gave Sam nervous look.

He scowled, "You could have just told me I'd be late for school tomorrow."

Tabitha smiled, "That was so cool." She seemed delighted and maybe a little jealous.

"I never lie, Samuel," the fortune teller said.

Sam stiffened. He had not given out his name and had paid in cash. Sure, he had an ID on him, for Rudy Baker, age eighteen. Had Tabitha used his name at some point? Had he? He flexed his hand, only inches from the knife. He really didn't want to cause a scene. For once he had actually fit into a school, had found a place among the complicated social cliques of his peers. Sam took Tabitha's hand instead and started leading her out of the store. "Come on, your father's probably waiting outside," he told her.

The man stood. "Wait," he cried. "Your mother, she did it to save you, but she did it wrong."

Sam stopped walking and hunched his shoulders, hurt blooming at the reminder of the long dead mother he'd never known.

"Please, take this," the fortune teller said, holding out a slip of paper. His hand was shaking as he added, "and never come back." His voice was pleading.

Sam crushed the folded square in his hand and left. He didn't get a chance to take Tabitha on a second date, even though she'd seemed to enjoy their time together at the mall. Dad finished his hunt early and they skipped town a week later. She probably wouldn't have agreed to it anyways. Sam had always been a freak and kids could somehow sniff that out, had a knack for it. It was uncanny. Sam figured he should have known considering nothing in his life other than Dean had ever followed him from place to place.

 

 

~::~

 

 

Sam was reminded of it on that day, his bag hanging heavy on his shoulder as he was thumbing a ride to California. He'd run out of money in Nevada. He figured the truck stops near Vegas would be easy pickings and it was looking like he'd been correct. Using his finely honed people skills he caught a ride in the right direction and thankfully the guy didn't turn out to be a creeper. He knew now that he'd been extremely lucky in that regard. Even as a hunter's kid, Sam had been sheltered enough that he was innocent of exactly how depraved some humans could be all on their own. That had been several hours ago and the tension had slowly bled from Sam's muscles while the desert landscape slowly gave way to towering redwoods and finally urban sprawl. He was that much closer to the city that he was determined to call home for the next four years. It would be the first home that he wouldn't have to constantly worry about leaving on a moment's notice. Even the prospect of signing a lease agreement for longer than a month at a time had sounded heavenly.

The hiss of hydraulics pulled him from his thoughts as the big semi pulled to a stop. "Hey kid," the driver said to him.

Sam lifted his head from the window. They must be closing in on wherever this load was destined for. He hadn't bothered to ask, just confirmed that the guy could take him as far as San Francisco before he'd committed to the ride. He was tired and feeling a bit melancholy, but he hadn't dared sleep. "This it," he asked. It didn't look like he'd expected, the street corner no different than any other city crossroads he'd seen. One of the reasons he'd chosen Stanford was that John had never worked a job in California, not that he could remember. It was the one state Sam could go to avoid the memories of his crappy nomadic childhood and the brother he was leaving behind.

"Sure thing," he replied. He pointed to a covered city bus stop, "The buses start running at five." That meant spending two hours out in the open. "You gonna be ok?"

Sam gave the guy a small smile. "Thanks," he said, not bothering to reassure him. He looped the strap of his duffel over his arm and opened the heavy passenger door as his eyes scanned the street for signs of a budget motel nearby. He'd need to spend a few more days in some grimy motel, but he was used to it. He had been careless with his acceptance packet, distracted by how close his dream now was, and his plans had been uncovered a few days early. Sam was undaunted, however. He was already looking forward to freshman orientation day, almost giddy despite the pang of loss he could feel at the center of his chest in the shape of a big brother he might never see again.

His feet had barely taken him from the truck, rubber soles scuffing on the pavement, when he caught the lyrics of a song on the trucker's radio. It wasn't the sort of music he had initially expected the gruff looking man to choose, and it was a frankly awful song from several years ago. In fact, it had sucked so hard he'd avoided the radio for a couple weeks when it had first come out. His opinion of it hadn't changed either. It was still godawful. The words struck a chord in him, though.

_Fortune, seller_  
Finder, seeker  
Giver, taker  
Wisdom keeper

_Take hold of the answer_  
Give life to the dreams you were foretold  
Looking into the future  
Trace the steps into the great unknown

He'd gone back to that same mall, shortly after it had happened but before Dad had stuffed he and his brother into the Impala to disappear into the night, and found the psychic's storefront empty. It had been empty for years, boarded up and full of dust. The fear had truly hit him then, just a touch had shivered down his spine while his heart rate kicked up a notch. He never told his family about that day, not Dean and especially not John. They wouldn't have understood. They were both hunters through and through, black and white. It would have been just another hunt, nevermind the indisputable fact that no harm had been done, to anyone. There had been just a few words shared, very cryptic words that made him tingle every time he thought about them but only words all the same. Sam had spent weeks pouring over the piece of paper the man had given him, trying to decipher what it could mean and had kept coming up empty. The best he could figure out was that a pair of soulmates were about to meet a very bad end. Sure, the entire thing was supposed to be a Greek myth that cheesy romance writers put into their works for an easy plot device. Soulmates didn't actually exist. He'd fought off things attempting to eat him that looked like they'd come crawling straight out of someone's worst nightmares, but he'd yet to see anything that suggested the overblown whimsical notion that two people could be crafted specifically for one another, two halves of the same soul, was a real occurrence.

Sam had finally decided the whole thing was just the fanciful dreaming of lonely people that desperately needed to believe in something pure. He'd never given the idea much credence. Hunters put a lot of effort over the years into ganking the weekly big bad. Not one had had ever told him that thumbing through ancient texts for the little whoo-whoo stuff like true happiness was a worthy pursuit. And what if he did have his very own perfect person waiting out there to find him. He had no clue, not one actionable idea on where to begin looking for her. No way would he ever meet her while holed up with his family at the ass-end of whatever random town John decided to dump them in. Soulmate or not, he'd never find love living like that. Dean might not have any aspirations beyond hunting, but Sam sure as hell did. So, he'd plotted a way to escape, to taste normal.

That was where he went wrong. He couldn't wipe from his mind the way his big brother's beautiful face had frozen when Dad, when John, had started yelling about Stanford. He hadn't told either of them he was even applying, had hidden his SAT scores as soon as they'd come in. He hadn't wanted to admit to a certain lack of trust between the brothers. He hadn't wanted to risk Dean tipping John off to his plans before they had a chance to become more than hopes and dreams. When Sam had started high school he had gotten more and more confrontational, quick to anger and slow to burn out. He would get upset at the slightest things, always seeing what he didn't have and blaming his family, even Dean, for the lack thereof. Now with the cool night air of California welcoming him and his anger simmering down to practically nothing, he regretted not warning at least Dean of his plans before he left them both behind. Miles away, he could still see how his actions had twisted that familiar face into a mix of shock, pain, and betrayal so raw that Sam was grateful the older boy knew how to hide it so well from John.

That single moment of naked emotion on his brother's face had been so brief that even hours later and hundreds of miles away, he was hoping he had imagined it. Had Dean's eyes really shimmered with tears as his bus pulled away? Sam had no one to ask, his bridges were torched to cinders and no one at school would possibly be able to imagine how getting a full ride at Stanford could be seen as a betrayal, how John could be so angry when Sam had confirmed his good news. He'd been so shocked at the eldest Winchester's fury that he hadn't thought to say goodbye to his brother, had barely acknowledged him when Dean had driven him to the station. They'd both been distracted, John's words still thundering in their ears, and now his big brother wasn't answering his phone. Sam was trying not to think about it, wanted to assume the other man was licking his wounds and would call him sometime soon. He had gotten his wish, the big one he'd barely dared to dream of, and now he was beginning to realize that he might have been wishing for the wrong thing all along. He checked his phone, fingers tracing over Dean's name in his contacts. Five hours. In all that time his brother had not responded once. Not even to tell him to go to hell. Sam squared his shoulders. This was it. The damage was done. The only thing he could do now was make college worth the price he'd paid for admission.

 

 

~::~

 

 

After Jess had burned, when the two of them sat side by side in the Impala on their way to take down yet another monster tearing good oblivious families apart, Dean still wouldn't talk about the night Sam left. Not really. And Sam was so caught up in hunting down the bastard that killed Jess, he forgot all about the fortune teller's warning.

 

 

~::~

 

 

The second time he heard it he'd almost forgotten all about it completely. Jess had been dead for nearly five long years, his one chance at normal burned to ashes along with everything he owned. He'd resented Dean after that. He couldn't bring the feeling all the way to outright hate, he'd tried and failed, but he knew deep inside that if he hadn't left with his brother Jess might still be alive. He couldn't even taste a chocolate chip cookie without seeing her bleeding body on the ceiling bursting into flames, feeling the heat on his skin, the blood on his face, the smoke curling in his lungs. It didn't even occur to him while they were running around Heaven, too busy gaping at his half-assed supposedly good memories to connect the dots. Paradise was nothing like he had expected. He should have wondered, though, why they shared a heaven, even if it had been a pretty crappy one seemingly designed to tear them apart.

Heaven was so far from everything he had read about it that he could only concede that perhaps he was tainted, his blood and thus his soul too corrupted for such a pure place and it was merely reacting to a presence that didn't belong. Maybe he didn't belong. Castiel had called him the abomination, the boy with the demon blood. It was the only thing he could think of to explain how wrong the memories in his Heaven had been. Why else would it have shown not even one hint of Dean, the one honestly good thing, good person in his life? Where were his greatest hits? Sure, those childhood moments he did see were technically happy ones, but it was a superficial sort of happiness. He was fond of them, but he would never choose to live them again. He would never have chosen them for his heaven best hits reel.

So, here he was, sitting in yet another nameless motel room while his brother was out getting himself blasted, and probably fucked. He clutched Dean's amulet in his hands, uncaring of the sharp points that dug into the skin of his palm. He had done it all wrong, he knew that now, but the only way out was forward. He'd lost Dean. Now the bitch Lilith had to pay for it.

It wasn't until much later that he realized he had missed the importance of what Ash had been hinting that day, during his disastrous tour of Heaven courtesy of the Devil's sadistic brood of brothers. He'd been too caught up in the panic when Dean turned his anger on Sam, when the addiction that had hooked its claws deep into his veins started ripping at his insides again. Then there was Lucifer. So yeah, sue him if Ash hadn't spelled things out clearly enough. He'd been too busy running away from a bunch of winged dicks for the implications to sink in.

_'Mm-hmm. Yeah. See you got Winchesterland. Ashland. A whole mess of everybody-else-lands. Put them all together: Heaven. Right? At the center of it all? Is the Magic Kingdom. The Garden. A few people share—special cases and what not, like, uh, soulmates.'_

If he had taken the hint, would it have changed how things turned out?

It wasn't until Dean fell into the grips of a terrible curse that he actually figured it out. The whole horrendous, wonderful truth of it laid out in front of him. The pieces slotting into place like they'd always been there just waiting for him to finally open his eyes.

 

 

~::~

 

 

2 months ago

God was pissing on Coral Springs. That was the only way Dean could think of to describe the sheets of rain pelting the windshield as the Impala crawled down Atlantic Boulevard. Visibility was shit, he could barely see her nose through the precipitation. To make things worse, her engine had started sputtering a few miles back. It wasn't anything serious… he didn't think. That didn't stop his heart from lurching with every hitch in her six cylinders ruining the smooth rumble that would have normally eased his current mood. Things were not going well for the brothers. He had mended this uneasy truce between them so many times that he was beginning to think of himself as a patchwork boy, cobbled together from a hundred different things he needed to be and wasn't. Dean didn't exist, not really. He could never become quite as real as he wanted to be. The time for that had passed him by, gone up in flames before he even knew what it was that he couldn't have. The simple act of cashing a paycheck, paying a mortgage, sending his kids off to school. The person known as Dean was made up of a series of thinly veiled falsehoods so feeble he wondered how they didn't rip to shreds under their own weight. He didn't know how to be anything else and it wasn't good enough. He never would be. Someday soon Sam would go back to his civilian life at Stanford, find his white picket fence, and leave him out in the cold. No matter what the kid promised it would be like before. Sure, he might try for a few weeks, but there was no place for the hunter, no room and no reason. It wouldn't take long before his little brother told him to get lost and lose his number too. Just like before. Just as it should be.

The traffic ground to a halt, red glare assaulting his vision through the wet curtain, and he barely missed running into the Prius in front of him when its tires slid to a messy quick stop. "Fucking hell," Dean yelled, slapping the steering wheel, his anger burning sulfur hot and just as briefly. Seconds later he was apologizing, petting the leather and hoping his car wouldn't hold a grudge. The idiot next to him turned up his stereo, the 'fuck you' evident as a stock hip-hop mix rattled the windows and set Dean's teeth on edge.

He was tempted to get out in the rain and give the man one of the more violent pieces of his mind when the traffic light took pity on him and turned green. He blew out a breath, relieved to be moving again, and stepped on the gas. She sputtered one last time, a gasping mechanical breath, before her engine cut out, leaving him coasting to a stop just inches from the intersection. Dean wanted to break something. "Son of a bitch. Come on Baby, you know I didn't mean it," he complained.

She gave a feeble wheeze when he turned the key, the starter barely responding. Apparently, she wasn't in the mood and there was no way he could push two tons of Detroit steel onto the shoulder without help. He loved her, but the Impala had a fat ass and an arsenal in the trunk weighing her down even further. He shrugged out of his jacket, tucking his visible weapons underneath the seat. With one last look at the regrettably silent gauges, he threw her into park and stepped out into the rain. He ignored the assault of blaring car horns his ear drums, hoping the moisture dripping down the side of his jaw bore no resemblance to blood. They could be upset all they wanted, but he wanted to see for himself what was going on beneath that black hood before he subjected his pride and joy to the ham-handed mistreatment of some random tow truck driver.

Reaching into the engine compartment had once felt much like stealing furtive glimpses up a girl's skirt, equal parts exhilarating and mystifying. He had been captivated by the symphony he created when he managed to tune her parts just right, moving in harmony. After rebuilding this beauty piece by painstaking piece, though, he knew her in and out, every detail etched into his memory. He knew her inside and out better than he knew the scars on his own body. He couldn't help but wonder if he had somehow let her down, if he had missed something crucial. She'd never let him down before, not even when she should have fallen to ruin on the roadside. A quick scan of the usual culprits yielded nothing. By all rights, she should be purring like a kitten. He leaned over further and pulled out his phone. Shielded by the hood, his eyes endlessly searching for some reason for the mechanical failure, he called Sam.

"What," Sam sounded tired.

"Listen, I'm not going to be back for a bit," he began.

Sam snorted, "Found some hot tail to chase. Typical."

"Would you just shut up for a minute," he snapped. His brother had been in a foul mood for weeks now and Dean was tired of trying to placate him. "Baby's not running, left me on the side of the road," he added. Sam snickered and he had to literally bite his tongue before he continued, "I'll need some time to figure out what's wrong or get us another ride while we're here." He waited for the next caustic comment and was not disappointed.

"Told you we should have picked up a newer car, Dean. The Impala is a gas guzzling dinosaur," he responded.

"Yeah." Dean hung his head, trying not to let the words get to him. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was distracted by the sound of footsteps on wet pavement in the rain. He turned and got a glimpse of a black-haired beauty, go figure, before everything went black and his phone clattered on the Impala's engine block.

The next thing he knew he was lying on something soft and scratchy, motel bedspread. He blinked his eyes open, wincing at the harsh glare of the lamp to his right. When he could focus, he recognized the ugly blue pattern on the walls. They'd checked into this room just last night. Sam was to his left, holding him down with his big hands on Dean's chest. He went with it and relaxed. "Where's the car," he asked.

There was no response, just Sam's hands petting frantically down his arms.

Dean turned his head. "Dude, I know you're mad at me, but you could at least let me know my ride is ok," he snarked. The sarcastic grin on his face faded as he watched Sam's mouth move, but no sound reached his ears. "Uh, Sam, I can't hear you," he finally said with dread.

Sam had heard the sharp metallic echo of the phone hitting solid steel before the connection had cut out and he'd been out the door without a second thought. His brother's phone had been ruined by the impact and subsequent drenching when it slipped right through the engine compartment and landed on the pavement underneath, but he hadn't needed the connection to find him. He'd found Dean by sheer dumb luck. He had known the older Winchester couldn't have been that far away, so Sam followed the first set of flashing lights he could see through the driving rain at a dead run. Dean had been crumpled in a heap, unmoving in front of the car with a sluggishly bleeding head wound dyeing the rainwater pink. He'd just barely arrived in time to to avert the fiasco of his hospital-phobic sibling getting carted off to the hospital and waiting the last hour sitting by the bed in the motel room for his brother to come around had done a number on his nerves. When Dean had finally opened his eyes he had thought everything would be alright, but he should have known the Winchester luck would bite them in the ass.

"You can't hear anything," he asked and Dean's puzzled look was all he needed to know the man wasn't screwing with him.

Dean groaned, absently noting by the vibration of the words leaving his throat that his voice had not suffered damage even though he couldn't hear it, and closed his eyes. Later, he'd have to leave that disturbing revelation till later. The world was spinning entirely too fast for his taste and it was beginning to make him nauseous. "I'm gonna throw up," he mumbled before emptying his stomach all over the pale gray carpeting.

Sam managed to get a trashcan in place before the pungent chunks Dean was heaving up could land on the carpet. "Eww, gross," he complained. Cleaning up sick was not his idea of a good time, and he really needed to have a good day for once. He was going to say more, complain a little more, but Dean passed out, collapsing boneless into Sam's chest where he was propped up.

He couldn't bring himself to vent his frustrations on his brother, despite the vomit smeared all over the front of his shirt. Sam cleaned them both up and then grudgingly checked Dean over again, finding only the head wound from earlier. It would have been a good sign if Dean had only woken up with a concussion. The deafness, however, was especially worrying and nothing about the hunt they just finished could have been to blame. Something else had happened and Sam had no idea what. It worried him.

The next time Dean woke it was dark out. He almost expected to look over at the other bed and find it empty. Sam was sitting up, though, back against the headboard and with his head buried in a novel Dean didn't recognize. Dean cleared his throat and noticed that though nothing else filtered to his ears he could, in fact, hear himself. "Sammy," he croaked. He said it a little louder when Sam didn't seem to notice him and the second time his little brother startled, like Dean had barked out one of Dad's orders. "Sam, I still can't hear you," he reminded him when the kid tried talking again. If it sounded like he was whining he didn't give a shit. He couldn't hear a damn thing, not even his own voice and the quiet was unsettling. Maybe, just maybe, if he thought he could have heard it he would have started screaming by now.

Sam turned his way and he was doing more of that talking shit that Dean couldn't decipher. It wasn't like he'd ever been deaf before, so he'd found no point in learning how to lip read before now. Dean scowled at the younger man and Sam seemed to get the idea, producing a pad of paper and a pen. He scribbled something on the paper and then offered both to Dean.

*I parked the Impala outside. How's your head?*

"I'm fine," he replied.

Sam didn't look like he believed him. *Talk to me, Dean.* He tapped the paper for emphasis.

He ignored the clawing panic in his chest that had started with the loss of his hearing and the steady throbbing of a head wound he knew wasn't going to give up anytime soon. He could deal with those. Slap on a smile and bear it, second nature. He'd been doing that for years. "I'm fine," he insisted, ignoring the fresh ache behind his forehead from having to concentrate on his speech. It was freaky, like having to clean his gun thick gloves on. He could do it, but he kept fumbling the volume. This wasn't going to get any easier unless he put a bit more effort into controlling it, paid more attention to himself when he'd spent his entire life listening for the sounds of trouble coming from the dark, from things not him. "Just hungry," he added, and his stomach growled in agreement.

Sam rolled his eyes, but when Dean tried to sit up he pushed him firmly back into the mattress with a serious look. His meaning was clear.

"Oh come on," Dean grumped, knowing exactly what was coming. Sam's mother hen routine was about to come out full force and there was nothing he could do to avoid it, not as long as he was impaired. At least Baby was in one piece.

The pad appeared in front of his face and he squinted. *Say that when you can talk without yelling. Stay there. I'll get food.*

He nodded, slumping in defeat. "Yeah, alright. And don't forget the pie," he muttered so softly he was sure Sam hadn't heard him.

By the time Sam returned Dean was about to climb the walls he was so bored. The TV was broken, and the radio slash alarm clock on the nightstand was useless to him now. All of his limbs had started twitching after about ten minutes and he was currently flexing his feet and tapping his thighs with his fingers to a beat only he could hear, lost in the soundtrack of his mind. He startled when a bag landed on his stomach. He glowered up at Sam, but was minutely appeased when the kid had the good sense to look sheepish. Sam made some vague motion and judging by the look on his face he was trying to say he was sorry.

Dean tore into the burger with gusto, smiling like a little kid while his growling stomach quieted. He'd never pretended that his needs weren't simple. It was the little things that brought him joy in life. Afterward, he lay sated and happy, patting his full stomach. For now. The slice of pie Sam had brought him had been awesome too, this key lime custard thing with lots of whipped cream. It had even had a white chocolate sauce drizzled on top. For as long as the flavor lingered on his taste buds he could ignore everything else wrong with his day. Maybe even the month. As long as his belly was full Dean knew he could put up with a lot of unpleasant shit.

*What happened?* Sam decided now was as good a time as ever to pry some information out of Dean. Figure out if he saw something useful while his full stomach kept him docile.

Dean scowled at the paper, squinting to read Sam's cramped handwriting. He shrugged and reached up to touch the bandage on his head. "Someone beamed me over the head. How the hell should I know?" Hello. Head wound.

Sam batted his hands away. The last thing he wanted was for those stitches to pop. Head wounds bled like a bitch. "No," he said automatically. Dean glared at him. That word was impossible to mistake. *What did it look like?*

"What did what look like?"

*The thing that attacked you* Sam furiously scribbled and shoved the paper under Dean's nose.

Dean's face lit up. "About five two, long black hair, and legs that could go for miles," he answered wistfully. Even the evil bitches could be hot.

*Not your last hookup, asshole.*

"That's what I saw, bitch. There musta been somebody behind me, cause I look up to see this chick coming towards me and then it's lights out," he grumbled. Of course, the little bitch didn't believe him. Why would he?

Sam was laughing. He couldn't hear it, but he could see it on the kid's face and in the subtle shaking of his shoulders. The neat handwriting was a little smudged this time when the paper was put back in Dean's hands. *Jerk. You got your ass handed to you by a tiny little girl who just happened to be out for a walk in a downpour? Are you sure she was human?*

Dean looked down, fiddling with a rip in his jeans. "No," he admitted. It wasn't like he had time to do the whole spiel.

He tried asking a few more questions, but Dean was finished with his interrogation, didn't feel like talking when he couldn't even hear himself speak. He never thought he'd miss the timbre of his own voice, hadn't realized how much he'd talked just to cover the silence hanging in the air. When Sam kept pressing, his brother stopped responding to him entirely and turned his head to watch the cars driving past the window. He was sulking. Freaking typical. Sam silently fumed on the other side of the room, trying to figure out why Dean wasn't accepting his help as eagerly as he had expected. He spent half that night restless, punching his pillow in the hopes that it would get just a little softer if he rearranged the stuffing just one more time and pointedly ignoring the fact that he was too pissed off at Dean to sleep in the first place.

They got convenience store coffee the next morning at the gas station near where it happened, Dean grumpy as all Hell because he wasn't allowed to drive. The older brother looked like a damned storm cloud walking around, green eyes flashing, and even the chicks were giving him a wide berth. Stunningly good looks, not even Dean's, could not even begin to compensate for the Winchester level of 'royally pissed off and about to deliver a beat down if Sam asked him one more smart-assed question' he had going on. They had both agreed they weren't going to get anything done cooped up together in the room and Dean didn't seem to be getting any worse. Plus, he'd made it clear he wasn't about to let Sam leave him alone in the room like some damsel in distress. Dean figure that if he could gank a werewolf with one broken arm, then he could ride in the damn car while they went to look for clues on what had happened to him the previous day. He was deaf, not dead. Not useless.

Sam was looking smug showing off a shiny recordable disc as he emerged from the cramped and messy store backroom.

Dean wanted to say something spiteful just to bring him down a few pegs, but he just didn't have the heart. "We done," he asked hopefully, the words like ground glass on his seldom used throat. Sam had promised him breakfast. He could have walked his ass to the diner down the street, but even he experienced trouble stomaching the sheer quantities of grease that place packed into their food during the cooking process. Fried butter would have been at home in that kitchen. He had an iron stomach, not lead-lined. Besides, there was a much better diner about twenty minutes away, the very one he had been returning from the other day, and the gas station was, of course, on the way. They had awesome pie, too. Even awesomer than that key lime thing Sam had brought him yesterday.

Sam said something, probably for the benefit of the store clerk, and Dean only caught a couple words from watching the kid's mouth move. It was just one more reminder of how useless he'd become. He knew by the pinched painful look on his brother's face that there had been nothing usable on the security tapes, but he'd gotten a copy anyway. They'd been betting on a long shot coming here. "What next," he asked as Sam stomped back towards him, frustration radiating off of him in waves.

Sam just looked at him. It was the look that said, 'You tell me.'

Dean shook his head, staring out at the patch of road where Baby had seized up and left him on the side of the road. She'd never done that before, not without a damned good reason. That got him moving, the thought that something truly serious had been done to her. She hadn't started when Sam had tried the key. The kid had had her towed. Baby, towed by someone other than Bobby. It wasn't right. They were currently tooling around in a crappy mid-nineties model Sam had hotwired on the outskirts of Ft. Lauderdale. It felt like cheating. "Take me to her, Sam," he ordered and flopped into the passenger seat with a determined look. She was the only good thing he had left now that he'd screwed everything else up.

It figured that Sam, despite Dean leaving no room for argument, would find a way to argue. The kid should have been a freaking lawyer. He could argue a feral cat into a wet paper bag. *Food first* Sam wrote on the paper with a scowl and then tapped the paper firmly when Dean opened his mouth to protest.

Which didn't mean Dean didn't bitch and complain, his singing even more off-key than usual, until he was, finally, happily munching on a burger in the passenger seat of the crap car instead of a booth at the diner, looking at the most beautiful piece of home he'd ever known. He even managed to get most of it into his stomach before they parked next to the hulking black beast that was his car. Mostly. A good portion of the leftovers was still leaking grease onto the floorboards, abandoned. So sue him. He wanted to get under that hood and figure out what that bitch had done to her. Baby wouldn't let him down, ever. Rain. Snow. Freaking Hail. It didn't matter what it was, she'd pulled through for him. Gotten him back to safety with half his life poured out onto the leather upholstery and Sammy half-dead in the back seat. He'd told the kid that, several times. That woman had done something to make the Impala stall out in the middle of the road.

Sam indulged him, rolling his eyes at the random cursing coming from Dean's mouth at each and every completely intact and in perfect working order inch of the engine. He sipped on a tall glass of iced tea from the nice girl at the motel office and shoved a water bottle at Dean every once in a while until the man gave up his search in disgust. Without a bay of tools and some time to take her apart, he was stumped as to what could have happened, and Sam knew he would be useless. His little brother still needed a refresher course on changing a flat tire. He'd put the jack in the wrong spot last time and nearly dented the driver's side door. Dean was still a bit touchy about that one. He'd been too injured to help and he'd woken up in just enough time to start yelling at the kid about proper jack placement and the proper treatment of ladies.

Several hours later Dean was closing the worn leather Winchester journal a little too forcefully. Sammy seemed equally miffed with his laptop keyboard. John hadn't written anything in there that could narrow it down for them and it seemed his brother's precious internet hadn't done much better. Their best guess so far on the culprit was that it was a witch and Sam knew his opinion on that subject. He'd rather go after a Wendigo in the rain with no flame thrower. Witches were just nasty. With that pleasant thought taking root in his brain, he stood from his sprawl on the bed, back cracking, and went looking for a beer. If in doubt, alcohol might just be the answer he could settle for. He thought he'd gotten away with it, open mouth of the bottle resting on his lower lip when it was snatched away and replaced with a bottle of pop by little brother's big hands. Sugar syrup crap he'd rather not pass through his lips. He might subsist on road food, but Mr. Pib was not on the menu.

Sam was a practical person and he knew how to use most situations to his advantage. His brother sulking on the motel bed with his arms crossed and very pointedly ignoring him looked like a perfect time to call for help, with the research at least. Now would have been the perfect time to call Bobby. The grizzled old hunter had been one of the few people with the ability to badger his older brother into accepting help. There was no one left in their lives quite like him and never would be again. You only got one chance at a surrogate father. At least theirs had been a good one. His replacement in the hunting community, however, did actually exist and, despite his grumbling and denials, Dean had developed a soft spot for the beanpole of a man and his spontaneous hugs.

Garth picked up on the second ring with a, "H'yello?" He sounded chipper as ever. Sam, not for the first time, wondered if the guy mainlined guarana.

"Garth, I need your help," he blurted out, thankful that Dean couldn't hear how worried he sounded. That would have made this whole thing much harder to do.

"Sam? Yeah, sure. Whaddya need," he asked, curiosity peaked. The brothers hardly ever called with something simple or not 'right the fuck now' urgent. Usually, it was bizarre, pressed for time, and of the world ending variety.

Sam scratched his nose. "I, uh, I need to know what could cause someone to go deaf without using a hex bag or causing any other permanent injury," he said, wanting to maintain at least a some of his brother's dignity. He wouldn't show it, but he'd be embarrassed if this got out.

"Lemme guess, Dean got himself into trouble again," he stated, entirely unsurprised.

Well, the cat was out of the bag now. "Yeah," he sighed. "He was knocked out and when he woke up he couldn't hear anything. He swears he saw a woman," he added just in case.

"Of course HE saw a woman. Whelp, I'll take a look and see what I find, Sam. I'll call when I have something," he replied. Then, after a moment, he added almost habitually, "Take care of yer idjit brother." When he said that last sentence he almost had Bobby's voice down.

"Yeah," Sam agreed and hung up. Easier said than done.

It was a tough two days waiting for Garth to call them back. By lunch on the first day Dean was combing through online newspaper articles, his knee bouncing along to whatever internal soundtrack was drowning out the silence as he worked. From the way his head was bobbing along Sam was guessing it was AC/DC, or Blue Oyster Cult. "Dude, look at this," Dean shouted, interrupting his thoughts. He'd been losing his ability to modulate the volume of his voice, often choosing way too loud and when he made an effort to lower it he ended up whispering instead, making his words almost unintelligible.

Sam walked over and followed Dean's excitedly pointing finger. He read the words, 'The Shoebox Butcher Kills 4 in Midland Park.' He scanned down the page and scowled. It looked like something they should check out, but the park was a two-day drive if they took it in shifts, minimum.

"Sucked on a lemon recently," Dean remarked, peering up at him like Sam was something to be decoded.

Sam shook his head.

"Sam."

He reached out and closed the lid of the laptop, his answer clear.

"People are dying, Sam," Dean argued. He couldn't let his own weaknesses get in the way of the family business. Saving people. It was the one thing he had left to hold onto. Not that he'd ever admit it to his sasquatch baby brother.

Sam set a piece of paper in front of him and Dean wanted to crumple it up and throw it away without reading whatever he'd written. He was so fucking done with this shit. He knew exactly what the kid was going to say, but, Sammy was waiting and knowing him the kid would just smooth it out and make him read it. He swallowed his pride and looked down. *You can't hunt like this.*

He looked away. "Rub it in, why don'tchya," he muttered. He needed a drink.

The next day Dean wasn't any better, brimming with energy and Winchester determination. He'd found three more possible hunts, one as far away as Nevada, and was starting his notes on a fourth when Sam towed him out of the motel. Enough was enough. He understood, though, that taking his brother to Walmart would have been a twenty-minute event and there weren't many other places that would have kept his interest for very long without boring Sam to death. So, Sam had found an ace in the hole not far away and he couldn't help the happy bubbling in his chest at Dean's wide-eyed look of wonder at the big indoor flea market as they walk through the doors.

Flea markets seem to be a southern thing. When John would leave them south of the Mason-Dixon line Dean would sometimes scrape up a few dollars and take them to the nearest flea market, an orderly collection of tents lining the worn dirt pathways of a field somewhere. Their festive signs were visible from miles away, big massive things with bright colors and lots of exclamation points. As a boy he'd marveled at all the battered treasures lining the seemingly endless tables while Dean was haggling for some bit of metal that could fix the air conditioner in the rundown house they were staying at or some other thing that needed his big brother's gentle hand to coax it back to life. And somehow they always had just enough money on the way out for a pair of ice cream cones, sticky sweetness against his lips. He hadn't realized what he'd been seeing back then, but he could write sonnets about the way Dean eats an ice cream cone, long slow licks and plump red lips.

The Festival Flea Market wasn't quite the same as the old flea markets they'd frequented as boys. It'd been commercialized, like a low-class mall with little mini-stores, and most of the used gems had been replaced by brand new Chinese junk that wouldn't last a month of regular use. There was even a food court. None of that mattered to Dean, though. He made a beeline for the nearest junk store, rickety tables threatening to collapse under the sheer weight of piled high parts. He actually cooed at the auto section, finding several things he just couldn't do without. Sam didn't see why they needed spare window crank handles, but he kept his mouth shut about it. Dean was already handing money across the table and scooping the handles along another small pile of parts Sam could not identify into a plastic bag. Dean looked so happy to have found them that he didn't have the heart to break his mood by complaining.

It wasn't long before they drifted apart, each followed their own interests. Sam wandered over to a couple of tables overflowing with used paperbacks, none of them were bestsellers. A few of them sounded intriguing, though, and money exchanged hands before his rational brain could make him feel guilty for wanting a few of them. Just because he yearned for some sort of life outside of hunting didn't mean he was able to ignore that little voice in his head, sounding disturbingly akin to John's, telling him how selfish it was to waste their hard-earned cash on something other than bullets or food, bullets more than food. The flimsy plastic bag filled with his new books was already swinging off his wrist, damage done, while he filled the remaining time searching for another distraction. He wasn't ready to leave yet.

"Sammy," he heard from several stores down and he gritted his teeth in order to resist the impulse to answer. Of course, his brother chose to disrupt one of the rare moments of peace he'd enjoyed in weeks, hell months. Yelling at the man would be a waste of time, though. What with Dean being deaf and all.

He hurried over to where his older brother was practically petting two identical leather jackets, soft leather giving easily under his touch. "Lookie here," he announced with pleasure.

"Don't think we can swing it," Sam snorted when he saw the price tag. He didn't notice his brother's face fall, mood dimming.

Dean didn't need to hear what he'd said to know the gist of his meaning. "Yeah, well, just thought you'd find it interesting. Looks just like Dad's," he replied, feigning disinterest.

Sam picked one up, trying to see what it was Dean had wanted him to see. Had he wanted to buy one? Both? Did he want to reminisce about the old days, as crappy as they were? But, Dean was already out of the area with a wave and a, "I need my ice cream. It's tradition," in that plastic jaunty style he used to cover whatever hurt he had brewing deep inside. Sam was left trying to figure out what had happened.

Then Sam saw it. One was bigger than the other, would probably fit him well, and he felt like an idiot. This wasn't about John. Dean had been grasping at whatever semblance of brotherhood they had left and Sam had shot him down. Would he ever stop screwing up?

He found Dean with a vanilla ice cream cone, nothing fancy, and the jackets seemingly forgotten. It didn't have swirls or sprinkles or chocolate chips. It was just plain old vanilla and he almost made some joke about being boring, but the guarded look on his brother's face froze his tongue. So he smiled and ordered himself a fudge ripple with strawberry sauce. He even risked looking like an utter fool to mime getting his sticky hands on the Impala's upholstery when they got back to her in an effort to goad a response from the man. He must have gotten the joke across because Dean grumbled, threatening the sanctity of Sam's laptop if he dared to sully his precious car. The potential embarrassment had been worth it. By the time their ice cream was eaten, Dean seemed less agitated and he was no longer avoiding Sam's eyes, not actively anyway.

"Garth, please tell me you've got something," Sam pleaded into the phone that night. The outing had done them both some good, but it was about time this little problem was resolved.

"I have something… Maybe. Without more information, I can't find out exactly what Dean got hit with but I have a couple things you can try to fix it," Garth explained. Sam hastily scribbled down the two spells Garth had tracked down for him. One was pretty close to a standard smudging used for cleansing and the other was something else. He had everything for the first one in the trunk of the Impala, meaning he would try that one today. The second would take a few days to obtain ingredients for; the ritual itself was a lot more involved.

Dean was already talking by the time he pulled the phone from his ear. The guy had raised him. He knew what every one of Sam's facial quirks meant. He knew something was up. "That Garth? Lemme guess. I gotta strip down and dance under a blue moon," he joked, snickering at his own cleverness.

Sam dropped his notes down where Dean could see. Might as well let him see it all before he pulled out the twenty question routine, even though Dean insisted Sam was the only brother to pull that act. He got a grunt in reply, the beer bottle halfway between the table and his lips, "Get on with it then." Dean downed the brew in one long swallow, throat working, and Sam had to look away. A year doing his best to bury it all under his farce of a relationship with Amelia and he still couldn't evade that magnetic pull.

Sam headed for the door and the Impala outside, needing something to do. He'd gotten out a good handful of suspicious looking little herb baggies, none of them labeled, and was searching for the last two in almost no time. Dean was a silent shadow at his back, obedient. He knew the other man was feeling vulnerable, down one sense and running low on sleep, but he was trusting Sam even as every inch of his body screamed out at how uncomfortable his current predicament still was. They'd both been working themselves ragged lately trying to fix this. So Sam, in a rare moment of clarity, gave Dean back a measure of control, of trust. He let Dean guard his back, knowing the man wouldn't relax otherwise, as Sam buried his head in the trunk. He emerged triumphant with two more seemingly innocuous items after a little more digging, equally glad to see a little more light in his brother's eyes as they walked side by side to the chosen site.

Their partnership had a certain order to it. Sam was the magic whiz and Dean was the weapons guy. It's how it always had been. Sam the Geek. Dean the Grunt. Dean wasn't about to change things now. The kid generally found comfort in his weathered old books and the procedure of a well-done spell, so he let him do the research and the little magic they were forced to use on hunts and Dean remained content with his own role in their life. It meant that when Sam insisted that the cleansing would be most effective under the light of the nearly full moon and with either dirt or grass beneath their bare feet Dean wrinkled his nose and put up little more than a token resistance.

The grass Sam found was a tiny green patch behind the pharmacy across the street. There was just enough room to draw the circle of salt so they could sit down inside of it, facing each other. Dean's knees creaked on the way down and he knew they'd crack on the way up. He'd need some ibuprofen later to make it all better. Age and hard use had done his joints no favors and there were days he wondered how they could still bear his weight after everything he'd done to them. The smudging itself was a simple thing, scented smoke and a few soft words of blessing at the center of an unbroken ring of salt, a little something to personalize the cleansing. When it was done Dean was disappointed that he didn't feel any different. When Sam started talking to him, cautious optimism blooming on his boyish face, Dean could only shake his head, hoping he'd judged the kid right and he was asking if his hearing had returned.

Sam's expression was pinched in thought, his worry mounting at the news. He sighed, puppy dog eyes out in full force and pulled out the notebook. His, *I will fix this*, was written in deep dark lines of ink, and Dean could only rest his hand on his broad shoulder to let him know that he believed him. Inside, though, he wasn't so sure. It hadn't been so long ago that this same little brother had seemed to be happy he was gone from his life, had not wanted anything to do with Dean.

Dinner was a solemn affair. Dean's usual boisterous commentary was conspicuously missing and Sam was trying his best to be a good brother without snapping the man's head off in response to his surly attitude. Sam got whiny when he was sick but Dean was downright hostile when he wasn't in top form, like a prickly and sneezy porcupine. He wasn't quite that bad yet, but he was working up to it. So he let him put whatever channel he wanted on the TV while Sam spent the next few hours making calls, which weren't going well. The name Winchester had never been the most popular, but now he was getting more hang-ups as soon as his name was out of his mouth than anything else. By the time Dean was drooling on himself, TV remote in one limp hand and an empty soda can dangling from the other, Sam had finally hit pay dirt. It was all the way out in rural Nebraska, but this person had the spell ingredients Sam needed and he'd promised to hold onto it until Sam could figure out where it needed to be sent.

He stripped Dean efficiently and the most reaction he got out of his brother was a brief session of snort-snores as Dean settled back into the sheets dressed in nothing but his boxers and his socks, blanket pulled up over his body. Sam did not mean to let his fingers linger for a second longer than strictly necessary when he tangled them in his big brother's hair and smoothed the short strands from his forehead. He absolutely did not want to admit he thought it was cute when Dean turned into his touch, burrowing into the warmth of the bedding as he did. Yep, adorable.

Sam had trouble sleeping that night. He got in a half hour here and there, but he spent most of the night pouring over the research he had unearthed. He hadn't been able to look through all of it yet and he couldn't ignore the remote possibility that the answer they needed could be in there somewhere. It was the stuff they both had put at the bottom of the pile, most likely to be useless. Over the years Dean might not have acquired a taste for the books, but he had gotten better at using them. He wouldn't have missed even the smallest helpful detail. Still, Sam put some light classical on the laptop speakers, pen tapping on the notebook he was using as he flipped through a scanned copy of this really old, and thus not in great shape, book Garth had sent his way for an entirely unrelated hunt. He was scraping the bottom of the barrel now and he knew it.

He was scanning the last few pages when he heard a grumble. He paused, fingers hovering over the page he was reading.

Dean shifted on the bed before flopping onto his back, sending the covers askew. Then he groaned. "Dude, it's like two. Can you keep it down over there?" Dean mumbled into the pillow. He started snoring before Sam could respond.

Sam continued what he was doing for about two seconds—the time it took for his sleepy brain to catch up to his ears. Then he was scrambling over to the bed and shaking his brother's shoulders with an excited, "Dean!"

Dean shrugged him off by turning onto his side and tugged the blanket up over his head, uncovering his feet in the process.

"Dean," he repeated a little louder and pulled until his brother lay flat on his back. "Dean," he tried again.

There was no answer.

"Dean, wake up," he barked, yanking the blanket and the top sheet off the sleeping man with a snap. The bedding landed in a heap on the floor at his feet.

Dean cracked open his eyes with a scowl. "What the hell, Sam? Can't a guy get any sleep around here," he grumbled.

Sam just shook him, undeterred, and then had to dodge the fist heading his way.

Dean sat up, rubbing the grit out of his eyes. "Alright, I'm up," he told him reluctantly. "What's this about," he asked and this time, he sounded aware enough to answer him.

For a moment, Sam was mesmerized by the pillow creases on Dean's face. He hoped he had arranged his face into his best approximation of sympathetic as he said, "You can hear me."

"Of course I can hear you. I," he stopped and Sam could see the exact moment it dawned on him. "Well, hell. Maybe there was a time delay on that cleansing thing you did, Sammy. Good job," he conceded and added, "Can I get back to sleep now?" Dean's eyes were closed before his head hit the pillow, giving an entirely new meaning to the term falling asleep.

Sam gave his brother an exasperated look but covered him back up and got to bed himself. He drifted off with his gazed fastened on the other bed. If he woke up to realize that this had all been a dream he was going to be seriously pissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics taken from the song Fortune Seller by Yes. I mangled a couple Wiccan cleansing rituals and then smashed them together. Sorry! The Winchester tour of Heaven occurred during S5E16 Dark Side of the Moon. The Festival Flea Market is a real place in Pompano Beach.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked out at the ocean. "I can't have what I want," he said sadly. The only answer he got was the wind howling along the cliff. A storm was approaching. She was gone. He put his hand on the circle of flattened grass next to him and sighed. Why couldn't anything ever be easy?

CAESURA: A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause.

 

Sam was woken by a delighted howl and the rumbling purr of the Impala just outside the motel room's open door. He peered blearily eyed into the rectangle of bright daylight, not able to see what was going on. "Dean," he called out. His legs were swung out over the edge of the bed and he'd levered himself into a sitting position by the time his brother's frame was blocking his view of the outside.

"Hear that, Sammy," he asked. "She's back," he announced. The pure, sweet joy in Dean’s voice would have been infectious if there had been coffee waiting for him.

"Coffee," Sam grunted, squinting up at him.

Dean's smile fell a little before he covered the slip. "Right. Sorry," he replied, a bit contrite. He returned a moment later with a steaming fresh cup of creamy hazelnut goodness, pressing into Sam's hand like he needed the encouragement.

Sam caught his wrist before he could pull away, "Dean."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck but didn't pull away. "Dude, you aren't usually this talkative first thing, but this is a bit much. Use your words, little brother. I don't speak Sam," he remarked with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"Yes, you do," he grumbled with a roll of his eyes. He gulped a good portion of the coffee and tried again. "I thought I'd dreamed last night," he admitted with a shrug.

Dean looked out at the gleaming body of their traveling home. "What about last night," he asked.

"You don't remember waking up in the middle of the night to complain that I was making too much noise," Sam prodded, peering up at him.

Dean looked confused. "Umm, no. I really did that? Dude, sorry," he replied. He turned towards the rumbling beast outside. "Listen, I gotta make sure she's gonna be runnin' right," he told him. He extracted his wrist from Sam's grip and headed outside, whistling. He pointed to a small paper bag on the table before shutting the door behind him.

Sam watched him go, wondering when Dean had worked through his own freak-out and how Sam had missed it. He’d been so busy worrying over the other man that he’d lost sight of how Dean was handling the curse. His brother’s easy responses this morning were so different than what he’d expected that Sam was temporarily shocked into inaction. He didn’t know how to proceed, how many questions he could ask before setting the other man off. The paper bag contained an onion bagel with lox and cream cheese. Where the hell had the man found a bagel shop out here? Beneath the bag, where it was impossible to miss, was his brother’s grease-stained notebook. It was a pointed and not very subtle reminder of just how restless the other man still was, had been since Purgatory. Breakfast served, he was more open to the idea of a hunt, depending on what his gung-ho brother had found. His eyebrows rose as he read it. For once the man's research was admirably thorough. There were a few key pieces missing, gaps in the information that they would fill once they talked with a witness or two. He finished off the bagel, slammed back the last of the coffee, and walked outside, ready to praise Dean’s work.

Dean was petting the steering wheel, but he shut off her engine when he saw Sam had stepped outside. He seemed nervous. "It looks good," Sam admitted, deciding not to embarrass the man.

Dean nodded, relieved. "Looks like another rawhead," he replied. It made sense. The place had been an operating daycare until last week.

Sam narrowed his eyes, "You good to do this?" He knew his brother loved kids, despite his macho-fueled denials. For the little ones, Dean was utter goo beneath his tough exterior. The cases with dead kids were especially hard on him. He'd drive himself into the ground trying to gank the monster, for as long as it took, just so he wouldn't have to see one more small mangled body. Dean hadn't slept for three days straight on the last one. Neither one of them could walk past garden gnomes without flinching anymore.

Dean glared at him. "Are you?" He looked out at the road. "Never mind," he added tiredly. "I'll be fine, Sammy. Pack up. We hit the road in thirty."

"It's Sam," he grumped, but he went back inside and started shoving his things into his duffel without further complaint. He was normally a morning person, but the last couple days had left him unbalanced. Dean didn't start bothering him again until long after Coral Springs disappeared from their rear view.

It was raining. Again. The roof of the daycare had a leak. Water dripped down on their heads and getting into the eyes. Also, there was no basement. No basement meant no rawhead. Just great. To make everything extra wonderful Dean had somehow gotten away from Sam in the small converted five bedroom house around ten minutes ago. He wasn't answering his phone. He tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut and failed. There weren't that many places to go. "Dean," he yelled, "Answer your phone, asshole!" Sam just managed to fix the idiot yesterday. What the hell was his brother thinking running off alone so soon after this latest crisis had been averted? The man had a death wish. He dialed again, running from one end of the southern style ranch house to the other. He got voicemail.

Sam headed out the back door, hinges squeaking as he flew down the back porch steps. He opened his mouth and was preparing to bellow for his brother, when the very man he'd been looking for clapped a hand over his mouth and yanked him down to the wet ground, hard. His nose squashed into soft flannel Dean-smell and he flailed. Dean's other arm wrapped around his chest, pinning him.

"Shhh," Dean hissed into his ear. "It'll hear you," he said and pointed through the scraggly bush they were crouched behind. Sam relaxed, knowing instantly who had grabbed him. As soon as Sam ceased his struggling, Dean loosened his hold and eased back, placing his hand on Sam’s chest and putting a finger to his own lips. With his other hand, he pointed further out into the yard.

Sam pushed away, brushing his brother's hand from his chest with a scowl. He followed the line of his brother's pointing finger and saw something moving near the pond. His vision was partially obscured by the shrubbery, but he could see that, whatever it was, it was huge. Words like lumbering and shuffling came to mind as he watched the bipedal figure make it's way around the pond, half in and half out of the water. He didn't have a reference point, but it appeared to be easily nine or ten feet tall. "That's, that's not," he began. Holy hell, what had they gotten into now?

"Yeah, it's not a rawhead," Dean finished for him.

The thing turned its attention towards the house, picking a path along the shore of the small pond that would end up right in front of the concealed brothers. Dean cursed. The malformed head was missing skin on a good portion of the face, exposed bright red facial muscles readily apparent. There were even several places where patches of wet bone showed through, strings of pale hair sticking to its bare skull. Gross. "We've gotta get back to the motel. We don't even know," Sam babbled in low urgent whispers. He needed to make a few calls. Maybe Garth could tell them something useful.

Dean put two fingers to Sam's lips to shut him up and he resisted the urge to suck them into his mouth, or lick them. Yeah, that wouldn't be weird. "Relax, Einstein. I know what it is," he told him.

Sam tried to convey his impatience, and surprise. Dean may have hunted without him for four years while he’d been off playing college boy, but he found it difficult to believe that the man would know about a monster when Sam didn’t have the first clue. Yeah, right. His brother had once used a tome on trolls printed in 1845 as a doorstop.

Dean grinned, immensely pleased with being the one in the know with something vital, for once. It was schoolyard childish and he knew. He also didn't give a damn. "It's a bloody bones, the rawhead's badass cousin. And yeah, we need to get out of here. This won't kill it," he said, holding up the taser.

"What will," Sam hissed as they crept around the corner to the Impala.

"Cold iron," Dean told him. "Sorta."

Sam scoffed, "We've got that." He went round to the trunk as they approached her, moving to open it as soon as he was within reach.

Dean stopped him with a hand clamped on his upper arm. "Cold, Sam. It has to be cold. And it won't kill it. There's no way to kill a bloody bones that I know of." He walked over to the driver's side and got in, his intent clear.

Sam reluctantly dropped into the passenger seat. "So, what's the point," he asked, wondering why they were bothering to drive all the way back to the motel for something that sounded as useless as the tasers and salt rounds they were currently carrying.

He put the car into gear and headed for the nearest gas station. "It's a type of faerie," he said and glowered at Sam's snorting laugh. Dean glared at him until he stopped his chuckling. This wasn't funny. "Stab that bitch straight through the heart with a solid piece of ice cold iron and as long as that iron stays put the thing is paralyzed. Then we lock it up somewhere sturdy and make sure no one ever finds it again. Presto, no more dead faceless pint-sized fibbers," Dean told him as they drove back to the daycare with a couple bags of ice in the trunk, iron blades already chilling.

"So, let me get this straight. This thing eats the face off of innocent children," he started.

"Liars. Lying children," Dean corrected him.

Sam nodded. "Lying children. And the best we can do is lock it up and throw away the key?"

"Yep," he replied, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis. Dean’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel, eager to take out one more ugly before it could kill any more kids. He rushed into the store when they arrived and came storming out with his arms full of bagged ice. Sam hadn't even had time to get out of the car. Dean must have just thrown some cash at the teen behind the counter on his way out the door. The drive back to the daycare center was just as rushed, Dean barely flinching as the tires rolled over the uneven road. He was too focused on the task ahead.

Sam studied his brother's back as they lugged the bags of ice and iron blades around to the back of the house. "How do you know this," he asked again. Dean wasn't the expert between the two of them. He didn't even like research, preferring to go off half-cocked rather than taking the time to gather all of the facts so that they could know for certain exactly what they'd be facing.

Dean looked offended, his shoulders tense. "What the hell do you think I was doing while you were off in California play college," he snapped, dropping the ice to the ground and digging a weapon from under the chips. The freezing cold metal sticking to his skin barely registered as he internally fumed. Did Sam really think he was that incompetent? Dean studied his brother for a moment. "You know what, never mind," he grumped and stomped off.

The bloody bones went down easier than they expected. It was a lot stronger than a rawhead, but it was also a bit sluggish by comparison. Dean was surprised by this, and he delayed a moment to be sure before taking full advantage. That didn't mean it was an easy fight. Not by a long shot. The bloody bones was wicked strong and its skin was dry and tough, almost like bark or cured leather. Dean finally managed to work his blade through the robust epidermal layers and with one final twist he slammed it home. The iron slipped into the heart like butter and the monster's massive body went rigid, swaying for a second before finally toppling forward--on top of Dean--sending them both into a large surprisingly deep puddle of water. Fuck.

There was a moment Dean thought he would drown, pinned beneath the bloody bones they'd just finished neutralizing. Between them, they’d finally been able to pull him out. Sam spent five minutes pounding on his back to get all of the water out of his lungs, his voice high-pitched and frantic as he called his name. He didn't relax until Dean croaked out, "Sam," in a spot-on imitation of Joe Cocker. Dean was just happy the monster had fallen towards him, driving the blade hilt deep, and not away. He didn’t think even his reflexes would have been up to the task if the monster had gone in the other direction. The iron would have been dislodged before he would have thought to let go of the hilt, ruining everything.

They locked up the bloody bones in an old cast iron freezer and left without any major injuries. Well, Dean seriously needed to wash off the bog water, but other than that they were good. Well, physically they were fine. Unfortunately, Sam made the mistake of letting his anger get the better of him, fear for his brother's well-being clouding his judgment. He ranted, accusing the older man of letting his stupid out and then he compounded the insult by suggesting that Dean had almost gotten them both killed with his recklessness. The critique was not well received. Never was. Sam was convinced that if they had returned to the motel for a little more research he could have gathered all of the facts, not just what Dean could remember off the top of his head, the bloody bones would actually be dead and not, you know, hibernating. Now some idiot could just pry open that freezer and let the child killing monster out as if Dean and Sam had never been there.

Maybe he should have mentioned his issues with the hunt's conclusion calmly rather than running his mouth. He should have considered the possibility that he was only pissed because Dean had, once again, thrown himself in between Sam and danger and nearly drowned in the process. The moment he'd realized that Dean was breathing he'd seen red and had yet to calm down. He may have also mentioned Purgatory and how brashly bloodthirsty Dean had been since his return. Once he started, well, he didn't stop. He didn't know why he had to pile it on by mentioning how very much he hated these changes in his brother. Sam may have even asked out loud, instead of just in his own head, what the hell he was doing babysitting his violent older brother rather than being safe at home with Amelia. It was only later, after he’d calmed, that Sam considered the fact that maybe he would have made a lousy litigation lawyer after all.

Sam instantly knew he'd screwed up big time as he watched Dean's expression shut down. It happened so fast that it was way too late to do anything about it before he even finished yelling. Then his big brother told him to fuck off, with every ounce of the pain and anger that had to be boiling inside of him. It was no surprise then when Dean announced he was going out. When he finally returned it was on foot. By then Sam was ready to apologize, was eager to get out those two little words. He didn’t know how long he paced by the front door. Back and forth. Back and forth. He never got the chance. Dean stomped past him and was out cold, drooling on the pillow,as soon as he collapsed crossways on his bed and fully clothed. Sam was left to try to pick up the shattered pieces of their brotherly bond from this latest skirmish and try to find a way to fix what he'd broken. He'd found the will to do it. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

Sam watched his brother whimper in his sleep. He was cursing his own uncanny ability to say the exact wrong thing at exactly the wrong time, always to devastating effect. He knew the nightmare currently disquieting Dean’s slumber had nothing to do with what had happened earlier, but that didn’t help the guilt eating at him. Even with everything he had managed to cram into his brain between Stanford and hunting and he still didn't know how to stop hurting the most important person in his life.

Things were unsettled during the next hunt. Dean kept pushing his buttons. Despite Sam’s desire to make amends, he couldn't stop lashing out, jamming hard on every insecurity in his brother’ psyche. They were two gears that couldn't quite fit back together like they used to. Sam blamed Dean half the time for their relationship troubles and tried not to think about it the other half. In retrospect, he should have insisted they take a break for a little rest and recovery.

The brothers ended up sniping at each other rather than paying attention to the baddie of the week. Dean missed the revenant by a mile on his first swing and got thrown through a second-story window. It only took a split second for him to get his bearings mid-flight and gank it, but Sam ended up paying the price for his delay. The damn thing had been wielding a rusty piece of sheet metal it managed to drive into the meat of Sam’s thigh and, as a result, he was limping badly as he rushed out of the building to pick Dean up off the pavement. He had forgotten all about the fancy footwork the man had pulled off to finish off the revenant while still mid-air, the severed head landing with a wet thud inches from Dean's own noggin' on the dumpster lid. All Sam could think was the revenant should have killed Dean. The fall alone should have killed Dean. Hell, the lifeless severed head could have killed him if it had landed just a little to the left. No more annoying big brother. The thought horrified Sam. Instead of doing the mature thing and just stewing on it long enough to think his words through, though, he acted like he was fourteen all over again and wasn't getting his own way. The caustic thoughts roiling in his brain just kept spitting out of his mouth, one after the other and without the benefit of a filter. He was suffering from verbal diarrhea, and it was getting all over his brother, his emotionally wounded big brother with a practically non-existent sense of self-worth.

"Daddy's little toy soldier," Sam remembered yelling spitefully. Thankfully he’d held back that gem until after he'd patched up the worst of his brother's wounds. There had been no getting near the man after that. Dean had gone quiet, pushed him away and left like nothing was wrong. The problem was, Dean had gone quiet. Sam knew that meant he wouldn't be back for a while. The younger Winchester crawled into bed, exhausted, and tumbled into sleep with minimal effort as if he were being dragged under.

Sam knew he was dreaming as soon as the ferret grew wings and started flying around the room like some demented version of a luck dragon. Last he remembered they'd bunked down in an actual hotel. He had made one too many snide comments about rock mattresses and Dean had rolled his eyes and checked into a Red Roof Inn, one step up from their usual mystery stain specials. He missed his bedroom at the bunker something fierce. He might be proficient at the drifter life, swindling and all, but that doesn't mean he didn’t enjoy having a place to call his own. The car didn't count, as much as Dean insisted otherwise.

The room was vaguely familiar. He’d been in a lot of bedrooms in his life, but this one made him think of cool spring rains and stealing kisses over stacks of textbooks. The ferret chittered at him, a sound he knew for a fact belonged to a squirrel, but the odd sound made him take a good look at the beast. There was a white patch near the nose he recognized. He'd managed only two actual girlfriends during his entire high school career. The marking on the animal’s fur was identical to… He was wracking his brain to come up with her name. Clara or Kiera. She had a pet ferret. He had spent a lot of time studying with her and the damned weasel loved to curl up in his lap, fast asleep. He'd wanted a pet so bad back then he’d put up with just about anything to get close to someone else's for a while. If he remembered correctly, her parents habitually worked late. They studied until the adults came home. Sam knew his brother still thought the two of them been getting it on the entire time. He couldn't have been more wrong. They had made out exactly once, and then, by mutual agreement, pretended to date. That had turned out to be much more fun than actually dating. She'd made a great girlfriend and an awesome tutoring partner. When he wasn't blushing and squirming in embarrassment over the hormone-fueled fantasies springing up unbidden in his mind, that is.

Sam closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to make the dreamscape change, but when he opened them the scene was the same. "Huh," he said into the quiet. The ferret made some weird avian coo and landed on his shoulder. Maybe he'd accidentally ingested LSD.

"I never lie, Samuel."

Sam turned in a circle, finding the room empty.

"Trace the steps into the great unknown."

"Hello," he called out.

The scene shifted around him until he was standing on a rocky beach, waves breaking on the shore and sending salty spray flying. He had no memory of this coastline from their hunts and it bore little resemblance to the places he had visited while attending Stanford. Sam didn't remember getting jumped by a djinn, but then, Dean had told him that he wouldn't, remember that is. He shrugged, deciding to go with it, and started walking along the water line as best he could. The logical thing was to play along and pick up clues as he went.

He hadn't been walking long when he saw a dark-haired woman standing on a stone up ahead. A translucent dress of white linen was whipping in the wind, pulled taut against the lines of her body, as he approached. "He needs you," she told him, mouth moving in tandem to the words echoing in his head. Her voice. His thoughts.

"What," he asked, shouting over the deafening roar of the ocean.

Her eyes flickered, like a TV station from one program to the next. Sam didn't think she'd heard him, or that she even knew he was standing there for all the attention she gave him. She turned away and started walking, following the rocky shoreline. She moved like an apparition, feet sure on the smooth stones and her clothing went untouched by the spray.

"Wait," he called out and hurried after her, his white rabbit. Sam's bare feet were slipping on the wet stones as he ran to keep up with her swiftly retreating form. He was shivering, soaked to the bone, but he continued. He had to know. "What do you mean? Who needs me," he shouted, voice swallowed as the sounds of the ocean redoubled, reaching levels that would have rivaled an oncoming train.

She disappeared into the distance, his sprint along the path she made outmatched by her easy measured gait.

Sam woke in a cold sweat, shivering in the air conditioning's chill. His undershirt was drenched and the salty scent of the ocean hovered in the air like it had followed him to waking. He would have been fine, a little weirded out but otherwise refreshed if he hadn't turned his head towards the bed by the door and found it empty. Dean hadn't woken early, the blankets remained untouched from last night. He vaulted out of bed with a shout, "Dean," hoping his brother hadn’t gone far as he tripped over his own shoes on the way to the door.

Dean had been up much earlier in the wee hours of the twilight, long before the sunrise and more from the complete lack of noise than anything else. In the forest, silence was often the first indication of danger, of a large predator lurking near. He'd spent a lot of time in the endless forests of Purgatory and that place was still there under his skin. The sudden change, from the steady hum of passing cars to nothing, jarred him from his slumber and then kept him awake, his eyes scanning the parking lot for unknown threats. Imaginary threats. Not even the comfort and familiarity of Baby's backseat could lull him back into sleep.

His hearing had quit on him again. He'd never considered that something so simple would be the first to go. This silence was worse than most injuries he had suffered. It should have been his bum knee, the one he'd blown in Indiana trying to save their Dad from impalement by a poltergeist, or maybe the shoulder he couldn't seem to keep in its socket for more than a few weeks at the time. He might have been able to handle those. Some painkillers and a brace when it got really bad would have fixed him right up. This, though, losing his ears put him out of the game. Sidelined. Useless.

Dean sipped on some motor oil coffee as he leaned back into the concrete bench near the motel parking lot, adopting his best relaxed pose like nothing at all was bothering him. He wasn’t far from their motel room, no more than twenty or so feet from where Baby was parked. He was close enough he could have heard his little brother’s bellow if his ears were working. But, they weren’t. So, he didn’t. Inside he was thinking that he couldn't keep this up. He was a liability and it was just a matter of time until he got them both killed. Maybe this was some sort of fucked up sign that he'd done enough. Saved enough. He'd known for a while that his death would be bloody. His end was going to be violent and he'd made peace with that. If he got Sam killed instead, though, he wouldn't be able to live with that mistake hanging over him. Game over. Might as well put him out of his misery now. The thought was enough to make him consider eating a bullet.

Dean wiped his hand down his face, scratching at his itchy morning scruff. If he took off now Sam might feel compelled to look for him for a while, but recent experience suggested he'd settle down quick. A woman and a dog. A damned dog had given that kid more than Dean ever could. Maybe he should throw a golden retriever into the motel room and see if Sam took the hint. Dean was nothing but dead weight with a mountain of issues that he'd picked up first in Hell and only made worse while in Purgatory. In a way, Dean almost wished he hadn't left. Purgatory was pure. It was simple. Kill or be killed. That kind of purity couldn't be found out in the messy human world. Maybe he could make his way to Alaska and squat in a cabin until something nasty found him.

Sam found him then, wild-eyed and half-dressed. He was yelling something, anger rolling off of him in waves and Dean was so done with this, the roller coaster that his brother's moods had become. He had been wrong to ask Sam to come with him. He hadn't given the kid much of a choice in the first place. He'd demanded, dragged, allowed no other choice. He'd crawled out of Purgatory and ripped the life his brother had scraped together, chosen, in Dean's absence away from him, all over again. Dean was so fucking selfish and he was reaping the consequences. He wanted to tell the kid that he was sorry, that Sam didn't need to babysit him any longer. He wanted to tell the kid to go live his apple pie life and that he would be just fine. Nothing came out. His throat wouldn't work. He couldn't even get the words to start. The connection between his brain and his mouth had been severed, like it had been during Sam's freshman year at Stanford and for those long months after Mom died in the fire. Dad had almost taken him to a shrink over that. Push the screws in deep enough and Dean just shut down.

Sam didn't seem to notice. He just got angrier with every question Dean didn't answer. The silent treatment wasn't a conscious choice, but as long as his vocal cords refused to cooperate he was limited to using a nod for yes and scowl for no, typical pissed off Winchester discourse. After another tirade that he was hopeless to translate, his little brother stomped off. Dean lifted his face to the morning sun and closed his eyes until a big paw landed on his shoulder. He didn't even bother to look, even without his hearing or sight Dean knew when Sam's big shadow fell across his back.

A pad of paper fell into his lap and Dean huffed. It was going to be like that then. He drained his coffee and got up without reading it. Whatever the kid had to say, it wasn't going to be all hearts and roses. That much he had figured out on his own. He slid into the passenger seat without too much complaint, and really that should have been a huge red warning light for Sam, but the pad landed back in his lap and Dean couldn't squash his curiosity. *Library, but food first,* it read.

Dean's stomach gurgled in glee and he opened his mouth to make a snarky comment about his stomach shrinking into his spine. Nothing came out, not even air. Fuck. For a moment he'd let himself forget, let himself believe he could deal with this normally like every other person. Of course, he'd never had a chance to be normal and wouldn't know it if the damned thing grew teeth and bit him on the ass. If he had been a hassle before, he was an anvil around his brother's neck this time. He couldn't even squeak, which probably would have happened when Sam jammed way too hard on the brakes to slide the last two feet into an empty parking space. Dean braced his hand on the dashboard to keep from breaking his face on it and smacked his brother on the back of the head as soon as the ignition was cut for screwing with his Baby like that. He'd taught the kid better. Treat the Impala like a lady and she'd return the favor. It wasn't her fault they were having problems.

He managed to keep Sam from noticing his new problem all through breakfast. Sam gave the waitress Dean's usual order without missing a beat and Dean was able to eat in peace while his big little brother happily munched on leafy green somethings folded up in an omelet that looked way too healthy to be healthy.

Even though the job was done and they had no reason to stay, they were still languishing in town. The library boasted a woefully pitiful nonfiction section. He imagined Sam must be getting hives just sitting in this place, but they were waiting for spell ingredients to show up at the motel and there was little else for them to do. The truce lasted until the two of them had been sitting across from each at the large wooden library table, each having valiantly attempted to ignore the other for the last several hours. Dean was pouring over a book about Greek goddesses while his brother thumbed through the entire reference section for the second time. Sam was the Winchester with the freaky psychic powers, not Dean, but Dean’s dream last night had felt different than usual. He didn't normally pay attention to the psychic crap, but it had felt different than the usual, almost like the way his memories in Heaven had felt. He didn’t remember all of it, but what he could recall had heavily featured the astrological sign for Libra. Dean needed to find the meaning of that symbol, the real meaning.

Dean had gotten partway through an old text on Aphrodite and all her many kids when Sam decided it was a good time to start noticing his surroundings again. *You haven't said anything since the motel.*

Dean looked up at him, shrugged, and went back to his reading.

Sam scowled. *Quit being a jerk.*

Dean thought for a moment he had him fooled, but when he didn't open his mouth and mock his girly feelings Sam got this growing look of horror on his face. Then he used this weirdly panicked expression, one Dean had seen many times. It was the 'oh shit' face, only used for truly dire fuck-ups, or anytime Dean incurred an injury that required more care than a couple of stitches and a bottle of jack. He couldn't help but think if Sam kept doing that it would be so funny to watch his face freeze like that. The momentarily amusing thought did little to lighten his mood, though. Dean's expression shuttered and he turned to look out the window, avoiding Sam. Without his sense of hearing, his sight was becoming everything. Out of sight, out of mind was more than just a figure of speech at the moment.

Sam snapped his fingers in front of his face. He would recognize that pissed off mug anywhere. His little brother was practically yelling 'answer me' with the way he was eying Dean.

Dean grabbed the pen out of his hand, ignoring his brother's outraged bitch-face, and started writing. The more he wrote the lower Sam's eyebrows got until he looked downright thunderous and very worried. It wasn't like he wrote a book or even an essay. It was just a few sentences basically telling the kid to fuck off and to give Dean some space. He even threatened to buy Nair. Of course, the fact that he'd written it instead of snarling it prompted Sam to grab him by the upper arm with that big paw of his and drag him outside. Dean went because he had no other choice. He wasn't about to start a tussle in a library with a bunch of kids ten feet away. Even he wasn't that thick-headed.

Sam didn't bother with the pen and paper. He didn't need to. He gave his big brother that patented Sammy look, the one that usually had him complaining about kicked puppies. Careful application routinely had him spilling his beans, or wanting to. Dean's programming from an early age made him little Sammy's guard dog and mama bear all rolled into one. The sasquatch used it now to get the man to cave with as little fuss as possible and he didn't appear to relax at all when Dean's shoulders slumped and he nodded, wiping a hand over his mouth. Dean looked away from the taller man, knowing it would be easier to stay calm if he didn't have to watch the moment Sam realized the smudging had not only failed but that it had failed so spectacularly that he was actually worse.

When Dean turned back around, lips set in a grim line, Sam wasn't looking at him. He was staring down at the paper, shoulders hunched. Dean could only nod because Sam knew just what was wrong. Dean had gone mute before, twice. Missouri had spun them a tale of a haggard John dragging two young boys into her house, soaked to the bone from the afternoon rain. Selective mutism. He looked back down at the table, buried his nose in the research at hand. Dean hadn't spoken a single word since the night their mother burned on the ceiling and John had been desperately looking for a supernatural cause, something he could fix. After Dad dropped dead in the hospital, Sam had been too wrapped up in his own grief to notice that his older brother hadn't spoken a word, not one since he'd woken up to find his father's corpse waiting for them. Bobby had gruffly pointed out the problem, and hidden the whiskey. By the time the younger Winchester thought to seek him out, Dean was barely responding to anyone at all. The only thing that seemed to have done any good was piece by piece transforming his car from a crumpled wreck into the sleek beauty they'd grown up in. Restoring Baby had brought Dean back after their dad had died. If only it was that easy this time.

Sam tapped him on the back of the head, insistent finger trying to tap out a drum roll on his skull to get his attention. Dean knew, he just knew they'd be doing another ritual cleansing tonight. He didn't fight the kid as he was manhandled back into the library and pushed down into the chair he'd gotten well acquainted with for the past few hours. Sam came back a while later with a new pile of old books for them. For the first time in a long while college boy wasn't content thumbing through their dusty pages, too fidgety to actually be getting anything out of the reading material he'd chosen. So Dean sucked it up, set his own project aside and started making notes from the one his puppy-eyed brother handed him until they were done for the day.

Dean noticed the mark in the shower. It had gotten worse. The skin looked and felt like a raw burn that had only had a few days to heal. It was scabbed over and he kicked himself for not saying something when it first started. They both had been so focused on his ears that neither had thought to consider something else might be wrong with the older Winchester. His shoulder had been a slow burning ache since the day Baby quit in the middle of the road and he'd forgotten all about it, washing the area as if it hadn't been bothering him the last couple days. When he got a good look at it in the mirror, putting into practice some torso contortions he normally reserved for seriously kinky sex in order to do so, he could see a shape beneath the thick scab that was looking loose enough that he thought he could remove it easily.

The skin was sensitive where he brushed away the dead flakes, revealing smooth and unblemished flesh underneath except for the slightly raised pattern of two parallel lines with a hump in the middle of one. They were thick black lines inked right into his skin, where that sharp burning had faded into a bone-deep itch he found possible to ignore. The sight had him scrambling, scrabbling at his skin like he could scratch it off of him. Someone fucking tagged him and he had an idea who. Or, more accurately, what had done it. Had Dean had crossed paths with a fucking cult or maybe even the goddess Libra herself? Whatever mojo it had been used, he had no intention of just letting it sit there. The mark was sparkling and last he checked his name was not, and never would be, Cullen.

Dean was grateful for his habit of layering clothing. No point in worrying Sam even more until he had a handle on the situation. Nope, this one he would handle himself. It would be just him and one trusty widget, the internet search. His first attempt got him a new age astrology site, but as he scanned down the list of websites his spidey sense started taking an interest. A few clicks in he found a forum ad he was about to close it out when the terminology seized his attention.

The poster was talking about a monster that could take on anybody's face. That sent a shiver down his spine, hitting way too close to home. Shapeshifters were one of his least favorite monsters. They were smart, resourceful, damn good at mimicry, and usually batshit crazy. Plus, that whole shedding skin thing was just gross. This guy had his lore right, though, and he seemed to be handing out solid advice. He mentioned the lens flare and the silver burns. He also waxed poetic about how horridly their skin stunk after they'd slipped it.

Now that was promising. Better yet, the same username was talking about Greek mythos a couple pages over and the dude is still online. Dean added his own advice to a few threads where key information seemed to be missing and was considering inviting the guy to a private chat room in the hopes he'd have something actionable on this Libra cult he’d become convinced was stalking him. It felt good to be useful for a while. He didn't get the chance. Before he could make up his mind he watched Sam walk through the motel door and circle around to stand behind him. Dean switched the active window to a random porn site, the raunchier the better, and reveled in the disgusted expression he imagined would be on the kid’s face as he looked at the screen from about two feet above Dean’s shoulder.

The kid gave him bitchface number 34 which roughly translated as, 'Really, Dean? You do know we still have no idea why you keep losing your hearing?'

Dean did the only thing he can think of, he deflected by replying with a blinding smile.

Sam responded with a heavy hand on his elbow and Dean's barely able to close out the browser before the kid had him up and out of his seat and then out the door. Dean sputtered, nothing coming out of his mouth, as he was stuffed into the passenger seat and a stick of solomon's seal root was tossed in his lap. Oh, they were going to do that weird nature, moonlight, smoke thing again.

When the time came, Sam made sure Dean got a good face full of the stuff, so much so that he proceeded to cough up what felt like half a lung afterward. His little brother hovered and at first Dean pushed him away, too used to patching his own hurts these days. He hadn't been all that good at accepting help before this latest break between them and now, after a year in the monster version of Running Man, he'd forgotten how. He'd lost their rhythm, too far out of step with Sam to slide back into their life like the last year had never happened.

The look on the kid's face, though, was difficult to ignore. Dean pondered what it could mean as the motel got bigger in the windshield. It wasn't his witness face, sympathetic but not really real. This was Sam's ‘terrified for Dean’ look, one he hadn't seen since the revenant, and it was genuine. Dean paused and wondered if his brother had stopped hating him, had stopped spending every free moment planning to leave him. Sam’s behavior had gone from the snide remarks and bitter sneers tossed between them to something else, something he didn’t dare to hope for. Between the anger and annoyance, there seemed to be a sense that Sam might be beginning to care what happened to Dean again. It was more than he felt he deserved, and he considered that maybe his brother only cared how capable Dean would be on a hunt. It was the most logical reason he could think of.

A whole year, he reminded himself as he readied for bed. For an entire year Dean had fought, neck deep in the blood and the gore and the horror, to get back to the one person he thought he had left while Sam had settled down with his girl and his dog and his happy life. And yeah, maybe he was more crestfallen than angry that he hadn't meant more. How could he even begin to just get over something like that? It was a while before he went to sleep, marking time by the rise and fall of Sam's chest in the other bed.

 

 

She appeared as soon as Dean’s eyes closed. Sam's steady breathing in the bed furthest from the door finally lulling him into sleep. At first, Dean didn't know what was happening. Unlike Sam Dean had never experienced a lucid dream in his life, except for the few times he had been facilitated by dream root and he didn't consider those actual dreams. Those were more like walking in his subconscious, scary shit.

The kid had gotten pretty good at controlling his nightmares since recovering from his stint in Lucifer’s Cage out of self-defense. Dean's own nightmarish flick reel was often some variation on the Hell that he remembered, and more recently they were mostly featuring the things he'd seen in Purgatory. He had never been able to break out of them once they started. This dream, though, was a breath of fresh air. He was sitting on a cliff, high above the waves crashing against the massive boulders below.

Dean didn't know what had brought about this relatively peaceful dream. He was just happy to go one night without the nightmares keeping him up. He just sat back in the grass and listened to the sounds of the sea. His head was tipped back, watching the clouds roll by when he noticed the first indications that he was not alone. It was his dream, so he could almost feel the unfamiliar trespass in his brain, like an itch he couldn't scratch or a presence looming over him. It made him jumpy, nothing like the gentle warmth he'd felt when Castiel visited his dreams. Not for the first time, he wondered if Castiel could have been his Guardian Angel in another life. His personality seemed suited for it.

He was scanning the meadow near the cliff for signs of life when he heard footsteps, bare feet drawing near. His eyebrows rose when he finally spotted her, white linen nearly transparent in the sun and draping around her body most becomingly. With her flowing dark hair and bare feet he thought she might be the leader of the little cult following him.

"Quick angsting, Dean. There's no cult," she informed him chidingly. "And not everyone is out to get you."

"Who are you," he demanded, jumping to his feet as if the ground had suddenly turned to lava. This might be a dream, but that didn't mean he should let down his guard. When he dreamed up hotties, they were usually a lot more willing and a lot less willful. This one did not follow the pattern.

She blushed, slight color spreading along her nose and cheeks beneath the olive tone of her skin. "I am flattered you find me pretty," she said. She sighed and looked out on the waves, "It has been a long time since I've seen my home. Please forgive this indulgence. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Do I look worried lady," he growled and she put a hand up, silencing whatever else he had planned to say.

"You can stop posturing. I want to help you. You and your brother," she said.

He snorted, "You gonna tell me what the hell is going on then?"

"Sure," she agreed and sat down, patting the grass next to her in invitation. "I marked you, Dean," she admitted.

"What the hell," Dean exploded, turning angry eyes on her. "Why the fuck would you do that?" He began chanting in his head, 'wakeupwakeupwakeup'.

She pulled a flower out of nowhere, a delicate white bloom he didn't recognize. "I am Libra. You could say you prayed to me with your little offering. I marked you as mine to keep you safe during these trials," she told him.

"So, I'm on trial. What am I guilty of?"

"I never said you were the one on trial," she said slowly. "I am interested in justice, but justice of the heart is particularly precious to me." Dean didn't say anything, too preoccupied with the cold climbing up his spine at the realization that he had an actual pagan goddess on his ass. "You've known almost all your life that you have been blessed with a soul mate. You also know who that person is. The spell I cast is not permanent. It is designed to give you what you want. That is all."

"Your curse made me deaf," he snarled.

Libra smiled softly like he was a precocious child. "It was what you wanted at the time. Stop wanting it and your hearing will return. Break the spell by forcing your soul mate to face what you mean to him."

He sucked in a breath, "I won't ask that of him. He doesn't want it. He doesn't want me like that. What if he doesn't want anything to do with me after this?"

"If he truly means it, that would break the spell too. But, is that what you really want?"

He looked out at the ocean. "I can't have what I want," he said sadly. The only answer he got was the wind howling along the cliff. A storm was approaching. She was gone. He put his hand on the circle of flattened grass next to him and sighed. Why couldn't anything ever be easy?

Sam woke him up with a hand on his chest, just sitting there staring down at Dean with a curious look. "I know I look good, but stop perving on me," he remarked, not willing to admit to the kid that his vision was hazier than usual and dimming by the second.

"Does that mean you've got your ears back," Sam asked hopefully.

Dean stretched and rolled out of bed. "Yes, Sammy, I can hear your sweet voice. Now shut it. I need a shower," he grumbled and shut himself in the bathroom.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean didn't let go for a while, but when he did his warm palm slid right over Sam's heart and just rested there. He hadn't done that in a long time, not since the last time Sam had been so sick his heartbeat had needing keeping watch. Sam had been ten at the time.

METONYMY: A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself.  
  
  
If Dean spent more time in the shower than strictly necessary, well, that was understandable. If he took the first available opportunity to aim his little brother's keen intellect somewhere other than the back of his big brother's head, that was understandable as well. He was still tired. The last few days' rest hadn't put much of dent in it. He wasn't looking to sleep, though. He needed a job, something to keep him busy. When Dean got tired he got restless, and he was very, very tired of this shit. So, he used up all the hot water while he worked out a little of his frustrations and let the resultant sticky mess wash down the drain. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, clouds of steam billowing out from behind him, he was feeling much better and he'd come up with their next hunt.  
  
Sam was whistling as he nudged the door open with his knee. He was balancing a pair of coffees in his hand and had a small box tucked neatly under the other arm. "Good, you're up," he chirped.  
  
Dean had his jeans on, waistband fitted loosely at his hips, and was rubbing lightly at the wet spikes of his hair so they wouldn't drip onto his neck and down his back when he got a shirt on. He grunted in response, head still under the towel as he reached out to snag one of the cups.  
  
Sam sighed and pressed it into his grip. "Nice to see you too," he grumbled.  
  
"I got us a case," Dean announced when he'd finished.  
  
"Dean," Sam began, "We still need to do that other ritual." There were those puppy eyes again. The kid was worried.  
  
He grimaced at the almost too hot brew as it slid over his tongue. "I'm fine," he insisted. "Save that for another time."  
  
Sam's face scrunched up. "I'd rather try it. Just to be sure," he pressed.  
  
But, Dean knew it wouldn't do any good. No matter what the kid had found. They'd been operating on the assumption that some stray witch had caught sight of him. In truth, he had a full-fledged goddess on his ass. It would take much more than a little mojo and some herbs to get rid of her. "The cleansing worked. I'm fine. Don't need to borrow trouble by dosing me with some magic crap we know nothing about," he replied.  
  
Sam sighed. "Tell me about the case then," he said, and Dean knew he'd won.  
  
The case was a day’s drive away in a sleepy little suburb. It even had training wheels. They’d been ganking, or helping to gank, monsters since Sammy’d gotten old enough to get into the microfiche room. It had looked like a simple salt and burn, but the brothers hadn’t counted on facing multiples in this ramshackle victorian style home. The rooms were small, sometimes just big enough to turn around in and not big enough to put up a decent fight. Close quarters combat was just fine and dandy for Dean when his opponent was actually visible. Three invisible pissed off ghosts was just asking too much of him. He heard Sam yelling his name as he hit the wall, the ceiling, and then watched the floor rush up at him alarmingly fast.  
  
By the time Dean opened his eyes again Sam was shoveling bits of dirt and pebbles over his shoulder with little care as to where they landed. Every once in awhile he'd stop and swing, dispelling a sinister looking child-sized apparition, before getting back to work like he was digging to China. Huh, an iron shovel. Nifty. Dean groaned as he sat up and checked out his surroundings, hand grabbing for his sawed-off like his very own security blanket. They were in the basement. They hadn't been before, and he didn't have the time to question how Gigantor had gotten him down there with three wrathful ghosties trying to make chopped Winchester out of the both of them.  
  
"Sam," he mumbled.  
  
His brother didn't seem to hear him. Those broad shoulders just kept working on the hole with the shovel with single-minded determination. Dean could see sweat beginning to trickle down his brother's broad back and pool at the waistband of his jeans.  
  
"Sam," he said a little louder.  
  
Sam stopped digging. "Dean," he said in a voice that wavered just a bit. Dean must be pretty beat up for the kid to pull out his little brother tone so soon.  
  
"Yeah, man," Dean grunted. "What the hell happened?" He slowly sat up and then levered himself into a standing position. The world tilted and then righted itself around him. Crap, he thought, yet another bash on the head. It was a wonder his brains weren't already pulverized into pink jelly.  
  
"We were wrong," Sam complained and paused long enough to slice the shovel through the dim form of a little girl, pigtails with little purple bows on the ends swinging against her back. "The children aren't missing. They never left the house." Gee, ya think?  
  
Dean picked up what he hoped would be an iron fireplace poker and got into position to guard his brother's back. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there three missing kids," he asked, not really expecting an answer. He knew the details of the case backward and forwards, same as Sam.  
  
"I think whoever killed them brought their bodies down here, dug one hole, and dumped them in together," he replied, voice hitching with the exertion of lifting each load of soil.  
  
"Let's hope you're right," Dean said as he skewered a nearly translucent little boy. Poor kid looked about seven years old, maybe six. He'd barely had a chance to live. His little boy face had been twisted with rage, though, and Dean wouldn't feel sorry for the soul. They were all three monsters now, vengeful spirits.  
  
Sam reassured him, "I'm right." He didn't say anything more between Dean's battle chatter until he let out a cry of relief when the shovel hit bone. "It's gonna get dicey, Dean. I found one," he exclaimed.  
  
Sure enough, by the time he'd uncovered all three bodies Dean's arm was tired and his trick shoulder was aching. He'd need to get some ice on it later or that arm would be out of commission for a few days. He was looking down at three small bodies, barely more than bits of bone and linen, as he pulled a book of matches from his pocket. Sam hastily threw in the salt and splashed more than enough lighter fluid into the gaping grave to light a good portion of the house above them on fire as Dean tossed the flaming matchbook in after it.  
  
"Woohoo. Take that," Dean crowed as the three ghosts screamed, disappearing in a wave of flame and ash.  
  
Sam coughed. The basement was quickly filling with smoke. "Dean," he pleaded as he hauled the older man up the basement stairs.  
  
Dean was a little dizzy. Maybe woozy would be a better descriptor. They should have cracked open a window, but in the excitement, neither of them had thought of it. Sam stopped tugging on him long enough to shove the door open and he teetered on his feet, nearly toppling back down the stairs with the sudden shift in his center of gravity. The door whooshed open, sending a billow of black smoke into the lower floor of the house. They tumbled through into the kitchen and Sam whirled around to slam it shut behind them. Dean just stood there, disoriented. He couldn't remember which way was out in the small home. They didn't get outside. The front door was ripped out of Sam's big paw and slammed shut before they could pass through.  
  
They doubled back to the kitchen, looking for a rear exit, and Dean watched as the flames began licking at the basement door. "Well shit," he griped when the back door wouldn't budge. It was shut tight. Then the windows didn't shatter when he tried to break the glass, bouncing him back into the room with a throbbing pain all along the side of his body. He got a tingling sense of foreboding. Something was wrong. "Hey, Sammy. You sure you got them all," he called out to the big moose, who was trying to kick down the rear door, and failing. Something was very wrong.  
  
Sam stopped, studied the flimsy bit of rotting wood and rusted fittings. "I'm sure," he replied, surprised to hear the nickname slip from his brother's mouth.  
  
"Well, you missed something," Dean shouted. He brandished the poker and swung it at the glass. It should have fractured into thousands of tiny shards. It didn't. "Who else has died here," he asked.  
  
"No one," he insisted.  
  
A lamp flew out of nowhere. Dean ducked and made a break for the other door, back into the dining room. "Well, it has to have been someone," he growled.  
  
Sam slid along the wall and followed him. "Think we got a poltergeist," he mused.  
  
Dean glared at him. "Not funny."  
  
The smoke began to billow from the basement, slipping through the space between the door and the jam. The brothers headed upstairs on instinct. Sam had seen a tiny balcony, little more than a ledge with a railing. It was a doorway, though, and both brothers could climb down the side of just about any house with relative ease. They'd cut their teeth on more perilous bluffs. A little tumble from the second floor was hardly something to be concerned over. Unfortunately, that door was as tough to open as the rest of them.  
  
A scream echoed through the house.  
  
"That sounds like one pissed off bitch, Sam," Dean grumbled. They had holed up in the master bedroom. He'd used the last of the salt on the door, hoping that would keep whatever was haunting this place out long enough to pull something out of his ass to save them.  
  
Sam looked constipated. "It's got to be the mother or the nanny," he stated, then added, "Maybe the cook."  
  
"Oh my god," he shouted. "Freaking pick one." Dean was scraping away at the bay window with his pocket knife, chipping off bits of the molding as a way to get around the issue with the unbreakable glass. If it worked they'd be out of there in, oh, an hour. Tops.  
  
"It's the mom," Sam muttered as a nearly transparent woman flickered into view liked she'd walked through the wall. She didn't look happy.  
  
"Huh," Dean inquired as he turned around.  
  
"You hurt my babies," she accused.  
  
"Listen, lady. Those brats were killing people," Dean replied as Sam tried desperately to find whatever was holding her. It had to be in this room for her to get across the salt line. "You all died a long time ago. I'm sure if you try it, you'll find Heaven very agreeable."  
  
'Agreeable?', Sam mouthed.  
  
She looked confused.  
  
"You are dead, Millicent," he repeated, finally recalling her name from the articles he'd read. He rose carefully from his crouched position beneath the window. He'd gotten a good portion of the sill loose, but it looked like he'd run out of time.  
  
"Dead," she repeated hollowly.  
  
"Yes," Dean affirmed.  
  
Sam had quietly looked through most of the dresser by then and he was getting a little frantic. The smoke was beginning to filter onto the second floor. He could feel the sting at the back of his throat and soon it would be affecting his lungs. Not good.  
  
She looked down at herself with a frown. "I," she began. "Has your despair driven you to take my loves away from me because you cannot have yours, David," she asked softly. Her hands curled into claws. She was looking right at Dean. "You shouldn't have done that," she explained.  
  
"Um." Dean was completely lost. From their research, they knew that David had been her husband and that there had been rumors he was involved with the Widow Jacobson at some point. Much of the newspaper archives from that time period had been misplaced. They did know that David had sold the house and left for the city after the death of his three youngest children. Everyone had simply assumed Millicent had gone with him. Oops.  
  
"What happened," Sam gently interjected, ever the witness whisperer.  
  
She obediently shifted her attention, facing the younger brother politely. She even had her hands folded in front of her.  
  
Meanwhile, Dean was making subtle gestures behind the ghost's back, trying to get him to shut the hell up. The last thing he wanted was for Sam to draw the attention of an unpredictable pissed off vengeful dead woman. It was like the kid was twelve years old all over again, with a death wish.  
  
Sam ignored him. "You can tell us, Millicent," he said, emphasizing her name. She had yet to react to it. That could mean they had the wrong dead woman. He was wracking his brain for another name, any name of a woman that had lived in the house and left under strange circumstances. A mistress perhaps?  
  
Her face contorted with rage and several small items went flying across the room. A hairbrush smacked into Sam's sternum, the skin smarting. Dean could see the wince from all the way over there. The broken light bulbs flickered and the house shuddered. The tall dresser shivered and shifted a few inches on the rough wood flooring. That would not do. This was an old style house and there were still fireplaces in every major room. Some of those fireplaces still had the small wrought iron shovel, poker, and tongs.  
  
"Hey," Dean barked, pulling her eyes back to where he stood. He swung, catching her with the very tip of the tongs he'd found, and she disintegrated, dissolving into nothing more than mist. "Sam, whatever you're looking for, find it. NOW," he snapped, utterly done with this job. Then he moved further away from Sam and started waving his arms around. "You keep your dead mitts off my brother, bitch," he yelled.  
  
There was a sigh, everywhere and nowhere all at once. The sound traveled down his spine as a wind picked up. It couldn't have come from the fire raging below. The door was still shut. He knew then where she would appear next, like she'd whispered it into his ear. Behind him. He sliced through her with the iron before she'd even fully formed. His grin was feral, too much white shining from between his lips for it to be anything but a snarl. Satisfaction. It was a fleeting sensation, though.  
  
When she came back it was from a little farther away, out of his reach. "I know what's squirming inside of you," she told him as her eyes slid over to where Sam was still tearing through her dresser. He watched the kid's shoulders tense. He'd heard her.  
  
Dean hit her again before she could go over there and cause trouble. "Right about now would be a good time to come up with something," he pressed.  
  
"I think I found it, Dean," Sam replied, his voice carefully neutral. He was holding up a lock of hair, and they both knew the younger brother was correct when her next attack sent him flying. He was just quick enough to save his skull from the impact, but that didn't prevent the spike of panic Dean felt as he watched it happen.  
  
"I can see your pain," she hissed. "Like a stutter in your chest, eating away at your very soul." She plunged a hand into his chest. "It hurts, doesn't it. Knowing he doesn't want you back," she pointed out as she clenched her fist. Her smile was unsettling, broken.  
  
Dean felt the squeeze on the muscle of his heart, its very beat slowing to a laborious crawl. He gasped, clutching weakly over his sternum. His hand went right through her, and the agony was exquisite. The muscles in his other hand spasmed when he tried to lift the iron in his own defense. It dropped heavily to the floor. The back of Dean's head hit the wall with a thwack.  
  
"I'll make it all go away," she soothed, looking right into his eyes. She sounded so caring as if she knew what was inside of him and she wanted to help. The illusion shattered the second she added, "No one ever cared enough to do that for me." Her face twisted again and Dean's level of pain doubled, sending him to crashing to his knees.  
  
His breath stalled and he could swear his heart has ceased pumping. He knew Sam was screaming his name. He'd caught the stricken lunge of the kid's long body as he frantically tried to save him. As the world faded to black he had enough time to hope his little brother wouldn't blame himself too much. Death didn't sound like such a bad idea this time around. Still, he fought against the fade, flailing feebly at the ghostly woman slowly draining the life out of him.  
  
Sam's everything stopped the moment he realized that Dean was no longer responding. He lit that auburn lock of hair on fire somehow. He had no clue how exactly. One moment he was cursing his lack of foresight, pockets empty without a lighter in sight, and the next he was sucking on the singed tips of his fingers as he watched the ashes float down to the floor. In that moment he hadn't questioned it. He'd just picked up Dean's limp frame, knees and shoulders. The ghost was still burning out as he hauled ass to the stairs. His brother weighed nothing compared to the sense of urgency coursing through him. He had to get the both of them out of that house before the whole place came down on top of them. As soon as her influence vanished, he was certain the bones of the place would collapse. They would most likely not survive something like that.  
  
Sam’s feet slid on damp grass when he reached the outside. He stopped for a moment, taking great lungfuls of clean air before lowering his brother carefully down on the ground. Sam pressed his ear to his chest and listened for the steady thump of Dean’s heart. The only thing he knew would ease his panic, get his hands to stop shaking so badly. It took a bit of concentration to hear it over the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears, but it was there and it was steady. He breathed a sigh of relief and sat back on his heels, his fingertips pressed to the pulse point under Dean's jaw like he believed that the moment he took his hand away it would no longer be real and Dean would be just another dead body he would have to burn.  
  
Getting Dean up and into the car was another matter. The adrenaline was wearing off and Sam had let his body go a little soft while his brother had been away. Dean hadn't. He'd gained dense, lean muscle mass. His brother was now ripped, the sort of gladiator musculature Hollywood preferred, and heavy. It was yet another reminder of the lost year of their lives. What Sam had kept of his previous muscular build had been maintained in an immaculately hygienic gym, working alongside stay at home moms and exercise junkies. It wasn't the same. As he hauled his brother into their motel room, Sam recalled how he couldn't have been more wrong in his assumption that Dean had gotten to Heaven after ganking Dick. Every ounce on his older brother stood testament to exactly how different his experience had been during that lost year. Looking down at the unconscious pain in the ass on the motel bed, he was starting to wonder why Dean was still making him pay for Amelia. They'd been apart far longer after he'd taken off for college and the man had shrugged, welcoming him back into the fold without batting an eye. Hell, Dean had come to get him when just about anyone else in the life would have been a better choice to back him up in his hunt for John.  
  
Dean didn't wake up slowly, not like in the movies where the actor's eyes open and then with a stretch he's off the bed and wide awake. No, Dean exploded into consciousness while Sam was thinking, his hand reaching for a weapon as he stumbled on the carpeting. He shook his head like he was trying to clear the cobwebs from between his ears.  
  
Sam was sipping on a bottle of grapefruit juice and going over their notes on the previous case. He looked over at his brother, trying not to move too fast and spook him. "You good," he asked.  
  
Dean grunted. He moved like an arthritic man over to the bathroom and locked himself inside.  
  
Sam stared after him. The man wasn't alright. This last job had banged him up pretty good and the fact that he'd been unconscious for the last forty minutes proved it. Something other than regular old post-hunt injuries pain was going on behind those green eyes, though. It wasn't all physical injury, or even a concussion. Dean looked scared. Later when Sam had tried to get at his wounds to redo the bandages without asking first. Dean had flinched, startled by Sam’s approach.  
  
Much later, Sam waited until Dean was digging into a philly cheese with gusto before clearing his throat and asking, "What's got you so jumpy? Is it something that ghost said?" He knew he'd hit the nail on the head when those green eyes went wide for the briefest of moments before the slip was buried under an avalanche of disgusting food porn noises. Sam hadn't heard everything Millicent had said, but he'd heard enough to worry. Something was going on. She'd hit on a sensitive topic and, typical, Dean was clamming up tight.  
  
Dean was quiet for the rest of the night. He was even compliant as Sam checked him over one last time before collapsing into bed. Sam had his own injuries to tend to, but they were easy to tend to by himself. He couldn't sleep just yet. Sam waited until the other man was out cold and then cleaned himself up and stitched the few injuries that needed it. Sure, he was tired, but the desire for rest was easy to ignore. There was too much banging around in his brainpan to let him get much true respite. Instead, he found himself pondering the recent turn of events in between waking his brother every two hours to check for the usual. What had his brother feeling so betrayed and why did it seem to be somehow connected to whatever the hell Millicent had said, and this damned curse Sam was certain was just waiting to pop up again unexpectedly.  
  
Sam found the reason in the book that had been nestled into the box of spell ingredients he'd shoved into a corner of the trunk and nearly forgotten about. It was old, old enough that he was pretty sure each letter had been penned by hand. The publication was a copy of a copy, and the passage he needed was in ancient Phoenician. Thankfully, one of the books that Bobby had pushed under his nose when he'd been a kid had taught him a bit about the language. The book didn't spell anything out in detail, but it gave enough hints that Sam was sitting there trying to relearn how to breathe while it all sunk in. To boil it down, there was an entire passage devoted to the Christian Devil, and unlike much of the contemporary literature available it had some very old ideas. One, in particular, had him thinking about several unsettling events in his life, unsettling because he'd ignored every admonition erected in his path before the world had gone to hell. Ash had talked about it. Chuck had hinted at it. Hell, even that fortune teller back when he'd been thirteen had known something, enough to give him what he knew now had been a prophecy and not some random crap. He was pretty sure he'd just translated that same prophecy a moment ago. Sam had ignored everything in his quest for normal, then for revenge, and only ended up deeply wounding the one person Sam hadn't wanted his dispathy to touch.  
  
Lucifer and Michael were twinned graces, soul mates. He'd been following Lucifer's script all along. The two of them had been literally made for those angels, their lives so closely mirrored the myth it sent shivers down his spine. Dean had been the one to break away, to get onto a path all his own, and he'd done it by saving Sam when any other sane person would have killed him, saving the world years of trouble. Soul mates. Holy rusted metal.  
  
Dean shifted on the bed, making a hurt sound, and Sam wanted to comfort him with a steady hand on his shoulder or chest. Before the last year, he might have done it, too. Now, he wasn't quite sure whether it would be welcome. At least, he was beginning to get a clue as to why. If he could figure this out he could fix it. He'd never told Dean why he'd been so desperate to get away.  
  
Breakfast was a silent affair. In the morning light, the bruises were vivid on their skin. Sam, the less colorful of the two, had returned to the motel room with food from the diner next door to find Dean looking at him like he was surprised to see him standing there. Sam tried not to be offended. OK, he wasn't exactly offended, just a bit hurt that he had to once again earn his brother's trust. Three months and the man still couldn't seem to accept that he would have his back. He seemed to always be looking behind him just to make sure Sam was still there. Constantly. It was partly why Dean was the more injured of the two. He'd been distracted.  
  
"I, uh, found out something interesting today," Sam ventured.  
  
Dean quirked an eyebrow. "Isn't it a bit early to indulge in your book fetish? So, what did you find out about our mystery ghost, Sam," he inquired.  
  
"It's not… I mean I did look into the ghost, but, uh, that's not what I meant," he fumbled. Now that he was about to broach the subject he was getting cold feet.  
  
Dean shrugged and waited for him to continue.  
  
Sam steeled his nerves for the big blowout he knew was coming and just said it, "I think we're soul mates."  
  
Nothing happened. Dean went back to eating like Sam hadn't said anything more profound than a statement on the weather. Even the prospect of pie got a bigger reaction out of the man.  
  
"Dean, did you hear me," he nudged.  
  
"Yeah, Sam. I heard you," Dean replied.  
  
Sam was dumbfounded. "And?" He'd left the last dregs of his protein smoothie to melt, leaving a growing moisture ring at the base of the cup.  
  
He shrugged. "It's not like it’s new information," he said and polished off the last bite of his breakfast.  
  
"You knew?" Sam was incredulous.  
  
"Yeah," Dean admitted and stood to leave the little table.  
  
He looked up at the man, watched him begin to shut down and he desperately wanted him to open up just once. They needed to talk about this. Sam needed to. "Since when? Why didn't you tell me," he asked, expecting some big explanation.  
  
"Figured you knew," he told him instead. He walked off, settling down on the bed and turning on the TV. The motel room was too small to actually get away, anyways.  
  
"That's not an answer, Dean," he fired back grumpily.  
  
Dean mashed the mute button angrily and was quiet for a moment before answering. "When was I supposed to tell you, huh? It has been made abundantly clear that you stay with me out of sheer necessity when you'd really rather be anywhere else."  
  
Sam gaped at him. "If this is about Heaven," he began.  
  
Dean intruded with a growl, "Fuck, Heaven. I'm talking about Flagstaff, Stanford, Jamestown, Ilchester. Need I continue? After I came back from Purgatory you were not exactly pleased to see me. Finally got rid of me."  
  
He scowled. "Stanford was college Dean," he pointed out. Only in his family would a full ride to an ivy league institution be considered some sort of repudiation of everything they stood for. How do you apologize for leaving after that? What do you say when you've left the most important person in your life gutted?  
  
Dean's eyes narrowed. "Then why did you tell me to stay out of your life?" Neither of them said anything in the wake of his accusation and the silence stretched out until Dean grabbed his jacket, heading for the door. "You know what. Fuck this," he spat.  
  
Sam was up and out of his chair before he'd fully considered what he was doing. All he knew was that he couldn't let his brother leave. He clamped a hand on Dean's upper arm, stopping him cold, and when Dean tried to shrug him off he backed the man into the corner by the door. Sam utilized every bit of his larger bulk to compensate for the new ways his brother had learned to break a hold. Even then, he was positive that Dean's injuries were the only reason that it actually worked. "Goddammit, you aren't going anywhere but the bed until you heal up some," he nearly yelled.  
  
Dean hit him in the solar plexus and Sam doubled over, hand caught in the fabric of Dean's undershirt. If he had looked he would have seen a wild sort of panic in his brother's eyes, fear like he'd only seen a few times.  
  
But, Sam's face had been pointed towards the carpeting and he didn't see it. He snarled, frustrated and angry beyond reason. Dean's shirt had a large rip down from the collar by the time Sam had him pinned, snugly pressed face first into the wall, again.  
  
The older brother chuckled. "If you wanted some quality time with me, baby boy, all you had to do was ask," he mocked. The torn edges of his shirt fell down, revealing parts of his upper back and shoulders.  
  
Sam practically shit a brick when he first laid eyes on the glittering black lines marring the skin over Dean's shoulder blade. The bits of torn shirt had parted enough for him to catch a glimpse and without thinking, he ripped the fabric even further to reveal the entire thing. The shirt was practically in rags, hanging from his arms by that point.  
  
It would have been funny if the older man hadn't been so upset over the loss of a stupid band shirt. "Hey, I like this shirt," Dean said and started fighting to get loose hard enough that he inflicted a few new wounds on them both.  
  
Sam released him quickly, keeping himself firmly in between Dean and the door. His brow furrowed as his brother rabbited away, like some weird game of hot potato and Dean was the potato. "What is that," he asked as Dean bent to retrieve a new shirt from his duffel.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
Sam huffed from right behind him. "That," he snapped and poked at the new ink.  
  
Dean tensed and snagged a relatively clean shirt. He gave it the sniff test, fabric balled up in one hand. Sam found himself admiring the play of muscle as Dean straightened and asked over his shoulder, "I get a new scar, Sammy?"  
  
Sam only glowered at him.  
  
Dean hastily pulled on the shirt and made for the door.  
  
Sam blocked him again.  
  
"What's going on with you," Dean wondered aloud.  
  
Sam was wearing bitch-face number four, or it could be twelve. He knew Dean had numbered all of his facial expressions, but it was tough to tell without a mirror. Sam just knew he was annoyed with the other man's attitude and a little bit pissed off. Not even Sam could say if the atmosphere was about to lighten up or if things between them were going to descend into an all out fist fight right here. "You got another tattoo, Dean. A libra. You aren't even interested in astrology. When were you drunk enough to do that," he snarled, but his anger wasn't genuine. He was stressed out, worried as all get out, and lashing out in favor of bawling in the corner. Dean never just got a tattoo. And, it freaking sparkled.  
  
Dean shrugged, Sam's anger rolling off of him. "The thing just appeared," he explained. "It's just a little ink. What's got your panties in a twist?" Sam could see the tightness around his eyes, though, the wariness. Dean was definitely not going to open his big mouth and spill about a damned thing. Nope. Not going to happen. The subject must have gone firmly in the 'not dealing with this shit' box in his brother's mind along with the rest of the crap from their life, padlocked and key disintegrated.  
  
Sam prepared to pull out the deep sea diving equipment, emotionally speaking. He grabbed Dean by the arms before he could dance out of reach again. "What's wrong? What's wrong is your hearing is on the fritz and a freaking symbol just appears on your shoulder and you didn't think I needed to know! What the hell, Dean! When did this happen! When did you start to keep…"  
  
"Well, it’s working fine now," Dean yelled at him. "What the hell are you doing here anyways?" He still couldn't figure out why Sam hadn't made tracks and left him in the dust. He knew the kid wanted to. So, what was holding him back?  
  
"Nuh-uh, we aren't changing the subject. Tell me that little decoration of yours has nothing to do with the curse," he pressed.  
  
Dean looked to the side, not meeting his eyes. It was all the confirmation he was going to get. That was it.  
  
Sam was busy berating his brother for keeping secrets while he pawed at the skin over his shoulder trying to figure out what the hell had latched onto the man, but he didn't miss the moment when Dean's muscles locked up. He didn't miss the moment that Dean started to tremble, a fine shiver beneath his skin. He knew something had just gone terribly wrong. What else could go wrong in this shit life of theirs? Those big paws of his were fluttering along Dean's arms like they didn't know where to set down safely.  
  
Dean finally twisted in his arms, hands outstretched and looking up at him through thick lashes.  
  
Sam let out a cry of denial when he saw those beautiful green eyes clouded over, tumbled sea glass. Dean's gaze was not quite high enough to be looking at his face, missing the mark. It was fixed at a distance somewhere at the level of Sam's jaw. He'd gone blind. Sam couldn't help himself. He reached out, pads of his fingers feather light over the man's eyelids. When his brother jerked back, a string of curses more than getting his point across, Sam wrapped an arm around his shoulders and held him tight. He crushed the other man to his chest and just held on until he relaxed and hugged him back, strong fingers finding their places on his torso.  
  
Dean didn't let go for a while, but when he did his warm palm slid right over Sam's heart and just rested there. He hadn't done that in a long time, not since the last time Sam had been so sick his heartbeat had needing keeping watch. Sam had been ten at the time.  
  
"What's going on with you, Dean," Sam asked. He didn't get an answer. It was time to call in some reinforcements.  
  
Dean was sleeping again, curled in on himself under the thick duvet like he needed the warmth. Sam wanted to crawl under there with him, especially since he'd learned that Dean wasn't hearing anything either. Blind and deaf. No wonder he'd been latched onto his little brother like he was the only solid thing in his world. After the initial freak-out, though, he'd refused any help, batting Sam's hand away every time Sam tried to assist him. Sam would never admit that he was only able to fall asleep after he’d set his chair close to the side of the bed, Dean's forehead nearly touching his knee as his breathing evened out and he slipped under.  
  
In the meantime, Sam had called for backup. He couldn't do this alone anymore, not when the options he was considering bordered on the ill-advised and slightly insane category. They were things he would have done back when he'd been high on demon blood, feeling all superior and supercharged. But, now, he could admit he needed help. He needed someone that would tell him not to go off the deep end again.  
  
The five foot seven backup Garth sent his way was not what Sam was expecting. His name was Kyu and the occult herbalist Sam had talked to was his grandson. "Umm, hi," Sam eventually managed to say, still a bit shocked.  
  
"Well, don't just stand there. Let me in," the older man told him with a twinkle in his eye.  
  
Sam scratched the back of his neck and opened the door wide to let him in. Sam was relieved that Dean had stubbornly inched his way into the bathroom about ten minutes prior, giving him plenty of time to perform the usual tests on the newcomer before he needed to run interference with Dean. With no hearing or sight available to the man this was bound to receive a bit of a violent introduction. Something was bound to happen. They were Winchesters.  
  
Sure enough, when Dean inched his way back into the room and figured out that someone else was in the room, and Sam had no clue how he had done it, he went for the closest weapon and nearly took Sam's ear off with the big bowie knife. Sam ended up octopussed around his irate older brother, their cheeks pressed together, before Dean calmed down. Kyu feigned disinterest in the entire affair as Dean tried disentangling himself, only to end up caught in a near panic attack after he succeeded. It took another few minutes for Sam to get him back under control again. When it was all over the pair of them were seated on the far bed, side by side, both dog-tired.  
  
Sam didn't immediately notice that Dean was tapping on his arm, …---… (SOS) ..--.. (?). It was during the third repeat that he caught on to his big brother's clever solution to communicate with him.  
  
He turned his hand and replied on the taut muscle of Dean's forearm, ….-..-.. (safe) -..- –. (name) -.--.--..- (Kyu) -.-..- -. (can) …...-...--. (help) ….-..-.. (safe).  
  
Dean relaxed, but he didn't move his fingers from Sam's soft skin, .-. (roger). His sightless eyes were staring off at the wall straight in front of him while he gripped the younger man, his last anchor in the dark.  
  
"Is he going to be ok," Kyu inquired. He'd sat down at the table when it was safe to do so and he had not moved since.  
  
Sam left his arm beneath his brother's touch. Dean seemed torn between getting out of Sam’s reach and climbing up into his lap. Eventually, Dean settled on remaining where he was, sides pressed even closer together so Dean could know where the kid was at all times. Even blind and deaf he was trying to look out for his little brother. It would be cute if it wasn't so damned annoying. "He's fine for now," Sam replied.  
  
"Garth told my grandson a little of what has happened to your brother. He thought I could be of some help," he explained.  
  
Sam looked over at his brother's profile. "Yeah. The cleansing doesn't seem to be working anymore and the curse is changing. Dean is now deaf and blind. What do you know about astrology?"  
  
Kyu looked thoughtful. "The use of the celestial to divine future truths. Yes, I know a bit. It's utter crap. Scapulimancy is more reliable and that is utter crap as well," he told him, pleased when Sam nodded in agreement.  
  
"Dean has the libra symbol on his shoulder now and I can't seem to get a decent picture of it," Sam told him. Dean shifted and Sam tapped out a rhythm on his thigh, –.- .-. -..- (wait), to get him to settle down again. He pulled up one of the images on his phone with his other hand, "No matter what I do the symbol refuses to be captured on film."  
  
Kyu studied the image, pursing his lips. "Is Dean a libra?"  
  
Sam shook his head, "Aquarius. And I'm a taurus."  
  
"So, maybe it isn't astrology. Have you considered the Greek goddess Libra," Kyu pointed out.  
  
"Like a Libra cult or maybe a lone priestess," Sam suggested with a frown. "She's a lesser daughter of Aphrodite, and completely nonviolent. I mean, if there was a hippy Greek goddess, she'd be it. Right next to Bacchus."  
  
"You boys been fighting more than usual lately," he asked perceptively, catching the wince Sam tried to hide.  
  
Sam nodded, looking guilty. "It's been really bad," he admitted, not wanting to explain further.  
  
"She's the embodiment of justice and her mother is the most well-known goddess of love in history. The people responsible for Dean's condition could be attempting to invoke her in some way by using the discord between you two. Love is not just a romantic notion. It could be familial. She would be drawn to the discourse and seek to correct it," Kyu said thoughtfully. He pulled four books out of the bag he'd been carrying, laying them on the table so that Sam could see the titles. All but one were in Greek, not his best ancient language. "Did Mr. Fitzgerald tell you what I want in exchange for helping you?"  
  
Sam ran his hand soothingly up and down his brother's spine and replied, "You need someone with a measure of psychic talent for a spell."  
  
Kyu nodded. "Yes, I'll work on fixing your brother," he said and pulled a thick envelope out of the bag. "Please review my notes on the spell I require and tell me if you are willing to attempt it."  
  
Sam narrowed his eyes. "And if I'm not?"  
  
"I promise no harm will come to you or yours. But, I am already here. I might as well make myself useful," he told him evenly. Kyu gestured to everything on the table, "Before I crack open the books, I need to get a look at the symbol you told me about. You were correct, those pictures are complete crap."  
  
Sam chuckled, "Give me a minute. Dean will need a little convincing to cooperate."  
  
Kyu humphed, unsurprised. "Take all the time you need, young man," he told him with an absent wave of one hand while he proceeded to bury his nose in one of the books he'd brought.  
  
Sam managed to wrangle the shirt off his brother. Kyu hmmm-ed and Aaah-ed as he took in the mark from every angle. He even poked at the skin, which sent Dean into a sprawl on the floor trying to get away from the unexpected touch. "I think a summoning might be best," Kyu mused.  
  
Sam, eager to have something to do, readily agreed. She was a hippy goddess. What could go wrong?  
  
It turned out that summoning the hippy goddess of justice, daughter of love, was easier than he had thought it would be. A nice red wine, a couple white peonies at the peak of bloom, and a little scented oil rubbed into the colored skin over Dean's shoulder blade was all it took. There wasn't even any blood in the ritual, and with the offering set out all they could do was wait for a response. The whole thing was strangely anticlimactic.  
  
"You," Sam bit out the moment she appeared. Libra looked exactly as she had in his dream. "What did you do to Dean," he accused.  
  
She ignored him and walked over to where Dean was sitting on the bed. His head snapped up as she approached and he backpedaled like he knew she was there. "First thing, let's get you fixed up," she said and touched him on the forehead with her fingertip.  
  
He gasped as his eyes cleared and the sounds of the room gradually got louder in his ears.  
  
"Better," Libra asked, her tone full of maternal concern.  
  
Dean nodded. "Thanks," he rasped.  
  
Sam was looking from Dean to Libra with his mouth hanging open in shock. He watched Libra tip Dean's face up with a single finger under his jaw. He watched the bruising melt away before his eyes. He watched the look of gratitude his brother gave her. Then it dawned on him that the man had his hearing back as well. "What the fuck," he blurted out.  
  
Two sets of eyes, one green and one a color he could not name or even describe, turned to look at him. Then Dean looked over at the goddess. "I'm guessing now is a good time to tell him," he ventured.  
  
"Tell me what," Sam demanded.  
  
Dean cleared his throat, seeming to shrink beneath Sam's withering glare. "I know how to break the curse. I've known for a while," he told him.  
  
Sam's face turned bright red, veins pulsing on his forehead. Dean swore he could see murder in the kid's eyes as he started yelling, pacing back and forth with heavy stomping steps.  
  
Well, it was out now. Dean was cursing his own stupidity and that tiny spark of courage he'd gathered snuffed out. He had been kidding himself if he thought Sam was going to take this well. There was no way he could confess what he needed to break the curse, not with the way he was reacting to the sudden insight that Dean had known how to fix himself and hadn't told him. His brother might call him a perverted freak and leave him on the side of the highway. Dean didn't want to hear it and he certainly didn't want to watch what little regard Sam had for him disappear beneath a tide of loathing. He'd seen that once already when the kid, high on demon blood, had left him bleeding on the floor with the accusation that he'd become too weak for the job. Too weak to do what was necessary. He closed his eyes and turned his head away. It had been worth a try, he guessed.  
  
Sam grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him once. "Of all the stupid… Tell me," he demanded.  
  
Dean balled up his fist and nearly broke his brother' jaw.  
  
When Sam landed on his ass on the carpet, holding his face while it throbbed, Sam had to concede that had not been his brightest moment.  
  
"Fuck this," Dean growled . He was out the door before Sam could stop him.  
  
"Sam," Kyu said softly. Sam had almost forgotten he was there in all the excitement. "Let him go," he urged.  
  
Sam huffed, but with the only other person, being, with the answers he needed standing in the room he wasn’t about to leave. Dean would cool off and eventually return.  
  
Libra was on the other side of the room, having not moved since Dean had stormed out. Her white shift was rippling around her frame as if a wind was blowing it about, yet the air was still. "You two are unique, special," she told him.  
  
Sam huffed again, feigning disinterest.  
  
She forged on. "Your creation arose from a circumstance that has not occurred a second time," she said.  
  
"I doubt we are the only two soul mates in existence," Sam added dryly.  
  
She arched one eyebrow and replied, "Did you know that your creation was the only project that pushed the boundaries of what the one god could accomplish. You two were so stubborn that you forced him to prevail upon a pagan for assistance. Splitting a soul is a very delicate procedure and he has never managed it without destroying the soul in the process."  
  
Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "So, what, is my soul flawed or something," he asked.  
  
Kyu stepped into view, holding out a glass full to the brim with some of the red wine they'd offered.  
  
Libra smiled, tipping her head in thanks. "Hardly," she scolded.  
  
Sam waited as she sampled the wine and then sat where she told him to sit. He was beginning to think he should have researched how to kill her before he'd summoned her.  
  
She snorted, "An offering is not a summoning, dear boy." Libra sighed, looking deceptively human. "The one god needed a pair of human souls that mirrored his two eldest archangels in every way possible. So, he sought out the one pagan that would do it for him. Aphrodite herself blessed your souls. It was she that made the cut, forming two equal portions from what once had been only one soul. I couldn't let you squander all of my mother's hard work," she admitted.  
  
That was when he got it. "You put the curse on Dean," he said.  
  
She nodded. "And the mark allowed me to monitor him, so that I could intervene if he came into any serious danger. He was never going to tell you," she said. "Aphrodite has the most experience splitting souls, but her power lies in romantic love and powerful lust. She ensured your health and survival, but she also imparted something else."  
  
The goddess was hinting at something, and it made too much sense. The reason why Sam left for Stanford. The reason Dean never, ever willingly talked about his feelings, why he kept the cure for the curse to himself. "You mean," he started.  
  
"Yes," she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scapulimancy is the practice of divination using the scapula, like an oracle bone. Historically used in ancient Asia; such as China, Japan, and Korea.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's mouth curled. His fist balled up but all he ended up doing was to push his brother back a couple steps. He hopped down off the rock. "I don't need your charity," he threw spitefully over his shoulder like the words left a bad taste in his mouth as he started walking away towards the dark forest.

AUBADE: A love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn.

 

Sam scrambled out of that motel room like he had hellhounds on his ass and narrowly missed careening into Baby's hood. His shins were not happy with him, as he hadn't managed to stop fast enough to save them from colliding with the hard steel bumper. Dean should have taken it when he left. His brother always drove the Impala, even if he was going next door. It was a thing. Sam hopped around her front for a couple steps, then that became limping as he passed the passenger door, and by the time he was leaving her rear bumper behind his gait had returned to normal.

It took him a little while to figure out where Dean had gone. The first place he had checked was the nearest bar, and then he'd searched every other bar, all two of them, in a ten-mile radius with no results. The moon was shining over his head by the time he figured it out. There was an old abandoned farm on the edges of town. It was maybe four miles from the motel. It wasn't the farm itself he was interested in. There was a large rock near the derelict farmhouse, large enough to lay back on and look up at the stars.

The Impala bumped along the two-rut road, the suspension squeaking in protest. He expected his brother to step out of the darkness and start yelling at him about abusing his Baby, but he didn't. He found him stretched out on the flat rock, eyes closed. Sam had a flashback, Dean laid out in the pine box he'd built with his own two hands, too still. The memory nearly sent him to his knees.

"Dean," he croaked.

Dean's legs were hanging over the side of the rock, one foot twitching in the way it often did when the man was listening to his music. Sam circled around till he was alongside the boot that was dancing in the air, ankle flexing to the beat of the music piping into his brother's ears through the earbuds Sam could now see he was wearing. He smacked Dean's toe hard enough to get his attention.

Dean sat bolt upright and was reaching for a gun in the span of a few seconds. His posture relaxed when he caught sight of Sam standing by his feet. The rest of him, though, didn't appear to be so calm. Dean scowled. "What did she tell you," he asked.

"Nothing that I shouldn't have already known apparently," Sam admitted.

His brother was surprised that Sam wasn't angry. He'd been looking down at the grass, not meeting Sam's gaze. When Sam spoke and his tone was more guilty than angry, Dean looked like he'd been knocked a little off balance. Sam felt even more guilty at the astonishment that flitted across his brother's face. He wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been looking very closely for a reaction of some kind. He had expected many things, this wasn't one of them.

"When are you leaving," Dean gruffly asked, trying to act like it wasn't the most important question in the world to him. He failed. Sam knew him too well. Judging by the tense line of his shoulders, the subtle quiver in his jaw as he spoke, and the way his fingers were twisting in the fabric of his jeans; he hadn't dared to hope and he was still steeling himself against what he considered to be inevitable.

Sam wasn't about to let him change the subject, though. "Is it true," he asked gently.

Dean looked up sharply, narrowing his eyes. "You should get away from me, Sam," he told him and looked up at the sky like he couldn't bear to see what his words had done to his baby brother.

Sam stepped up to the rock and slammed his hands down on either side of his brother's legs. He didn’t like hearing Dean talk like this, like he didn’t matter. He leaned forward into his space and challenged, "What if I don't want to." Sam searched the older man’s face.

Dean reclined backward onto his elbows, pulling away. "What… What are you doing," he asked nervously.

"Soul mates, Dean," he reminded him. "So, I'm just going to do something. Try not to hit me."

Dean looked puzzled and it brought a little innocence to his features.

Sam decided to just go for it, knowing his brother had trouble with words but with actions, he got with the program pretty quickly. He pushed forward and swiftly touched his lips to Dean's.

 

 

Dean melted, his mouth dropping open slightly on a gasp and Dean was too surprised to do anything else. Sam took advantage and licked inside, plundering, and he thought maybe the freak-out he had expected wasn't going to materialize. He thought too soon, though. Dean got over his initial shock and threw himself backward, elbows colliding painfully with the rock below them. "What the fuck, Sam," he accused, eyes wide. He looked betrayed. "I would have left you alone. You didn't have to do that."

Sam grabbed Dean by the back of the neck while he was still sputtering in his indignation. He pulled his brother close and pinned his legs where they dangled over the edge of the rock. Dean was effectively trapped. "No, but I want to," he said and dove in for another kiss. This time Dean wasn't surprised and his mouth remained a hard line, closed. Sam pulled back enough to look him in the eye. "This is why you didn't tell me how to cure the curse, right? It had to do with this," he stated.

Dean's mouth curled. His fist balled up but all he ended up doing was to push his brother back a couple steps. He hopped down off the rock. "I don't need your charity," he threw spitefully over his shoulder like the words left a bad taste in his mouth as he started walking away towards the dark forest.

Sam hurried after him, catching his brother just inside the tree line, massive white ash rising up from the ground around them. He didn't turn the man around. He wrenched his arm behind him and threw him up against a nearby trunk. Dean didn't make a sound, even though Sam knew he had to be making a few new bruises. "You don't get to do that. I didn't kiss you because I thought I had to or because I thought it would help you," he said, finally beginning to get it all out in the open.

Dean opened his mouth.

"Shut up. I'm talking," he bit out. He shifted his grip as the other man wiggled, trying to get free, and continued, "I kept leaving because I couldn't stay. I couldn't let you find out how much of a freak I really am. Not you." He let that hang in the air between them, what little there was. "But, I'm not the only freak in this fucked up family of ours. Am I, Dean," he guessed and crooned that last word, his brother's name.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," his brother protested, but it was weak.

Sam flipped him around, pressing close to Dean's front to keep him from bolting, though the man had ceased his struggles and didn't seem intent on going anywhere. "Yes, you do," he affirmed. Dean was shaking his head, lip wobbling, and Sam wasn't going to let him run from this any longer, not now that he knew. He cuddled against him from sternum to toes and nipped at the man's lower lip, barely brushing their mouths together.

Dean's eyes slipped closed.

Sam took it as permission. "So goddamn long," he mumbled in between bouts of devouring the man with kisses. "Couldn't," he licked along the seam of his lips, "let you go," he bit down gently on the plush cushion of his lower lip and slid his tongue inside his mouth, "Couldn't have," he slotted his thigh in between Dean's legs and stole the last bit of breath the man had, "what I wanted." Sam shoved Dean's shirt up to his armpits and looked down just to admire the taut muscle he'd revealed. "You want me to stop, now is the time to say it," he informed Dean, but he didn't give him the time to properly consider his offer.

Dean just groaned, too overloaded to process what was going on. He just knew that this was Sam and not some pathetic hallucination he'd dreamed up to make himself feel better. Sammy. He started pawing at his brother's clothes, opening the layers of cotton to reach warm silken skin.

Sam didn't know how they got back to the Impala, just that they did. They collapsed into the backseat, legs and arms hopelessly tangled and completely naked. Sam banged his head on the roof getting into the car and Dean spent a good two minutes complaining about his bad knee in the limited space until Sam did something that made his mouth open on a gasp so wide that he literally had to shut up.

"We are talking about this later," Dean grumbled when he was able, but his ire was flat. It was a little hard to believe when he was mouthing down Sam's neck leaving little bruises on his skin while one hand was kneading Sam's muscles in a slow slide down from his waist.

Sam chuckled, "Shut up," and settled his legs a little wider in encouragement.

Much later, they were naked in the back of Baby slowly coming down from their post-orgasmic highs and neither Winchester had the first idea as to where their clothes went. "Sammy," Dean rumbled.

Sam hummed, his head lolling on his brother's sternum, "Yeah, Dean."

"Where'd our clothes go," he asked with genuine puzzlement.

Sam laughed.

They never found them either. Dean tried to look for them, he really did, but Sam was too busy marveling over the freshly unblemished skin of Dean's shoulder to give much of a damn. They had extras in the trunk for occasions like this anyway. Well, not exactly like this, but you get the idea.

"You know, that was my favorite shirt, Sammy," Dean griped as they were driving away.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Every shirt is your favorite shirt," he pointed out.

"Not so," he denied indignantly.

"I wuv hugs," he teased, looking over at his brother with a fond smile. The Impala seemed to roar in agreement as the man stepped a little harder on the gas.

Dean grumbled, "I was four," but the corner of his mouth was curling upward.

The skies opened up and with a flash of lightning and the deep rattling rumble of thunder from a strike that had landed pretty close-by, it began to rain. Rain, though, would be an insufficient term for the sheer amount of water that was coming down. Torrent, downpour, inundation, cascade; all of the above. In seconds the little dirt trail was riddled with puddles that turned into a murky quagmire of mud, dragging the Impala's tires down into their sticky depths. They were fine as long as they kept moving, but they hit a particularly deep dip in the trail and her tires spun.

Dean hit the gas to push her through it, sending a spray of mud behind them. "Son of a bitch," he grumbled as he peered out into the storm. Then he stomped out into it and started digging at the mud, trying to clear the tires enough to find some traction. The best thing they had, though, was the snow chains in the trunk, which would be utterly useless in this instance.

Sam and Dean were back in their seats, looking less than happy with the turn of events. They were soaked and muddy from the knees down. "Son of a bitch," Dean yelled and slammed his palm down on the steering wheel.

Sam dialed the garage he'd seen in town while his brother grumbled in the driver's seat. "Tow truck driver said he'll be here as soon as the rain let's up," he told Dean. "So, want to have that talk now?"

His forehead thunked onto the top of the steering wheel. "Not now Sam," he whined.

Sam wiped at the speckles of drying mud on his arms. "You said later," he pointed out.

Dean's arms were looped over the steering wheel now, fingers splayed on the dashboard. "I meant later, later," he argued. He rolled his head to peek over at Sam and was met with the dreaded puppy dog eyes, the ones that he could never figure out how to say 'no' to. Dammit.

Sam was trying not to look too triumphant when Dean gave a big sigh and leaned back in his seat, head tipped looking up at the roof.

"Alright, Princess Care Bear, whaddya want to talk about?"

 

~::~

 

  
**Epilogue**

On the edge of an ancient cliff-face, Libra was leaning over a large reflecting pool. This was her sanctuary, her safe place. She had pulled this island out of phase with the rest of the world to a wavelength just barely out of sync with humanity several millennia ago and filled it with the things that brought her joy. The reflecting pool was her favorite addition to the landscape. She'd commissioned its construction when these cliffs were still young. It resembled a rather large bird bath, and her birds must have agreed with her as she often found them frolicking in its sun-warmed waters.

At the moment, though, there wasn't an avian to be found. She was watching two brothers in its mirror-like surface with a fond smile playing across her lips. It had taken them a long time to come to grips with their status as soul mates, but once they had there didn't seem to have been any hesitation.

Kyu stepped up next to her and looked down. "Well, lookie there," he chuckled. "Took them long enough." Miles of sweat-soaked skin had been revealed as the pair stripped and fell upon each other. In their desperate frenzy, it was difficult to discern what body part belonged to whom.

Libra smirked, "They were always going to end up here. Together," she told him. She waved a hand to clear the image, letting her songbirds descend on their favorite bathing spot and splash in the water. Her smile continued to play gently on her lips and she gave him a sidelong glance when she added, "About as useless as trying to convince one of them to give up on the other."

Kyu winced. "I didn't know," he protested petulantly, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. "That happened after I left," he informed her as he pointed emphatically at the reflecting pool.

"I thought you were dead," she said, expertly skirting the subject. A small gilded table with two cushioned chairs lay a few steps away and closer to the pounding sea. It hadn't been there before and neither had the delicate porcelain tea set on its surface. She lowered herself gracefully to the cushioned seat and poured two steaming cups.

He rolled his eyes as he followed her. He'd been fielding this question for weeks now. "Well, no one is ever actually dead. We just go back to dad for a while," Kyu informed her. "He told me I'd earned a vacation for a bit. He's got one hell of a sense of humor," he added dryly, though it sounded like there was much he'd left out of the story.

She refrained from pressing for more information and set his cup before him with a gentle flourish.

He up-ended the honey until he was satisfied with the sugar content. "Ooh, oolong," he remarked happily.

Libra smiled and nodded, listening to the sounds of the waves.

Kyu fidgeted. He wasn't fond of the silence or the stillness. He was an agent of action and she could see the moment he could stand it no longer. He twisted in his chair and lowered the collar of his shirt until she could see the back of his neck. There, nestled among the short hairs at the top of his spine was a symbol in glimmering gold. He pointed to it, exclaiming, "Look what he left me with."

She squinted, pulling the glyph carefully into focus. She knew it was a word, but Libra didn't know how to read that language. There were few pagans who could. "Is that…?"

He harrumphed. "Yeah, he wants me to look after one of his two favorite mud monkeys for a while," he told her with another roll of his eyes. He pulled a long twisted rainbow pop from his pocket and popped it into his mouth with a blissful look on his face. "I'll give you two guess at which one, and the first guess doesn't count," he added bitterly, clearly not enamored with the idea.

Libra cackled, her head thrown back and mirth dancing in her eyes. "This is going to be fun," she teased. "So, when are you going to tell them?"

Kyu grumbled something about Winchesters and trouble. "Never," he snapped testily, but she could tell he was too sure about his answer.

Briefly, she caught a glimpse of his true self in those borrowed eyes. They glowed a brilliant shade of gold almost too bright for her to handle. She turned her head to look out at the rolling green hills and said nothing. He was not as aloof and carefree as he pretended to be. That had never been his nature, but there was nothing to gain by pointing that fact out to him.

The being that had assumed the likeness of the scholar Kyu drained his sugary tea and set the cup down on her table.

"Just think about it, dear," Libra urged, looking back at him when she was sure it was safe to do so. She hoped that he would eventually accept what his father had planned for him.

His shining golden irises faded into a warm brown hue while he scowled at her. She tipped her chin at him in recognition. Then he snapped his fingers and disappeared.


End file.
